大象传媒

This story was submitted by Chloe Broadley of the CSV 大象传媒 Coventry and Warwickshire Action Desk on behalf of Joyce Moriarty and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was twelve in 1940. That summer we could see the dogfights over Coventry. When my brother Edward was returning to work along the A45 an enemy plane came over and machine-gunned the workers. In October my brother Harold got married in Gloucester - her family were all there. On our return to Coventry about nine o'clock in the evening there was a raid on, so there were no buses or taxis, so we had to walk home along the Kenilworth Road. Bombs were coming down all around - we went into the ditch, and got dirty. That was only a short raid.
In the Coventry Blitz of November 14 we were at Green Lane. What with the bomber's moon and fires everywhere, it was like broad daylight. Said Dad "We'll have a prayer. Lighten our darkness......" he began. I started giggling at that! - and got told off. It went on all night.
We had no electricity or gas, water only from a standpipe. Mother had to cook on the fire. In the field at the back there was a parachute hanging in the tree with something on it. I wanted to go and look at it, but wasn't allowed. It was a landmine! So we were all moved out - we went to my sister's fiance's mother.
I was evacuated a week after the Blitz. My sister took me with the school to Foleshill Station for Atherstone. I felt very unhappy and alone, although they were kind people: a retired miner and his wife, who had lost their own daughter at the age of thirteen. The woman, in her cross-over apron and turban, used to hug herself and rock, saying "Ain't it awful, Joycie? Time they left us poor people alone." I was at Atherstone for a few weeks. I was to be bridesmaid at my sister's wedding, but I couldn't stay in Coventry because of the typhoid. So I had to stay with a friend outside the city boundary. She just had a litle family wedding at home. I came back home at Christmas to stay, so I couldn't sing in the school choir's performance of "The Messiah" - that upset me.
I remember when the King and Queen came to visit Coventry - we school children were lined up along the Foleshill Road to see them.
Every Saturday we went to Lyons - a temporary shop in the Broadgate - and queued up for an hour for a swiss roll and a packet of sponge cakes.
I went to work at AWA, in the offices - it was all war work. The bombing was over The other workers were all very elderly: one was eighty two. One day he fell off his chair. I was afraid to go him - was he dead? -no, just asleep! I was there for eighteen months, I was told of the D-Day landings there.
Then I got a job at Carbodies. The hours were long, eight till six with compulsory overtime and some Saturday work, but to be quite honest we didn't have to work very hard.
I shall always remember the dreadful newsreel pictures of the relief of Belsen.

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