大象传媒

I am 50 years old and grew up in the 50s where a lot of adults told their tales of the war my mother would often talk of her time in the blitz in london about the different shelters she and her mother would go to maybe telling these stories was her way of coping with it all after the war, she lost a few friends in the bombing and perhaps talking about it helped don`t forget there was no counselling in those days where as now if there was a disaster counsellers would be made available. My mum told us tales which were mainly in a more comical mode and only now and again it would turn a bit dark as she related tales of lost friends, my mum grew up and lived in the "angel" area of Islington north london she told us there was a bomb shelter at " our lady owens school" i think this was a catholic school as there was a lot of italian families in the area and mum had a lot of italian friends she had friends who were part of a big family and a lot of them got killed when lady owens shelter was hit I am sure mum said that the father eventually committed suicide I cannot recall their names and mum is not with us now so i cannot put that right. My mum and her mum would often use the Angel tube station as a shelter this was a good one as it is very deep, mum said when they came out in the morning they would not know weather they had a house still standing to go home to , one of mums sisters had 5 kids and had evacuated to devon with the kids and was living and working on a farm there, mum would sometimes get the train and go and stay with her she said the farmhouse was haunted and the first time she stayed she slept with her sister and she saw a figure of a lady glide across the room as she was about to tell her sister her sister said to mum don`t worry I see her most nights and she means us no harm this spooked mum but her sister was a "hard nut" and mum just carried on don`t know if this is true about the ghost but mum was a very honest lady and never lied. my mum had a near miss with a V1 or "doodle bug" flying bomb she was walking in upper street in islington and one came over and the engine cut out as it dropped my uncle who was walking nearby saw mum and pulled her to the ground and the bomb went of close by. My father was a driver in royal army service corp and drove tank transporters he entered the army in 1941 till 1945 he was in north africa and italy he was at the battle for "monte cassino" he told me this was a terrible time the battle was very long and nasty, he told me though on the rare occasion he got home leave he was glad to go back to the front as at home the blitz was terrible