大象传媒

Exeter was a city that did not expect to be bombed, but probably in retaliation for bombing of similar German cities of little strategic importance, it got well plastered and the centre was flattened. I lived a kilometer out of the centre in College Road and the house, fortunately rented, got a stick of incendiary through the roof. The fire wardens put it out, but caused much damage in the process (including burns on the back of the leather sofa that always seemed rather exciting later when I was a
small boy).

My Mother was ordered to leave and was led into a nearby house and pushed under the steel-reinforced table Morrison shelter (an alternative to the outdoor Anderson corrgated iron shelter) forcing the existing occupants to budge up to make room for her, and my carry cot, and me - still fast asleep! (I have always believed in keep my head when all about are losing theirs!)

Next day, as the house was uninhabitable with a hole in the roof, water everywhere and rubble down the stairs, and no windows intact, my mother packed a few items like my and her clothes - and the new wedding present cutlery). She faced a difficult journey circling the city centre to her
mother's house in Queens Crescent. At the end of a long circumnavigation, she finally had to persuade a policeman to look the other way while she pushed my pram, and me, quickly past an unexploded bomb in the road to reach the house. Afterwards she moved out to join a friend who had a cottage in the country for some months until it was sensible to return to the city.

Sadly she didn't pack any of my Father's clothes - they were promptly stolen (being 'on-coupons', even second hand clothes were valuable). This contributed to his long delay before being demobbed, eventually with a single ill-fitting suit.

My first memory as a child is VE day when there were bonfires in the bombed areas and lots of singing and dancing in the evening. Since mother judged the the vegetarian ration was better 'value' than the normal carnivore ration, I didn't eat much heat - and I suspect is was pretty poor quality anyway. So my most vivid memory of the evening is being given beef mince, no doubt a saved-up treat using weeks of ration coupons, which I instantly condemned as disgusting and inedible, and spat out! And I didn't eat meat again until I was offered a steak in America aged 18.

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