大象传媒

I believe that I must have been about 7 years old and it was about the 15th June, 42/43. My brother then aged 2 was asleep in his cot, I was in the back bedroom, my parents were downstairs in our semi detached house, in a very ordinary road.

I was woken up by my parents seconds after a plane was heard then the engine cut out, then came the explosion. All the windows in the house fell out as did numerous ceilings and walls. My father because he was an electritian and was working on mainting electricity supplies in London, he was also an air raid warden. He had been told about the Vl's, my mother hadn't. Dad sent Mum up to get us and he had to go off to help any neighbours. As my mother went up the stairs the plate glass window to the left of the stairs fell out in front of her. She carried on unhurt, I by this time was out of my room and as she went to get my brother from his cot, the only piece of ceiling that hadn't fallen down in his room was the piece over his cot. He too was fine.
We went downstairs and stood on the front steps until we were helped by air raid wardens to our Anderson shelter, where we lived for several weeks until our house was repaired.
There were looters around almost as soon as it happened.
The one frightening memory I have is I saw, from the shelter doorway an aeroplane which appeared to be hovering over our roof and I was terrified of another explosion and our house being completely demolished. Again, we were lucky. The weather was perfect, my birthday party cancelled but unlike neighbours a few streets away we were alive.

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