NextBackI I was 4 years old and my mother and I had just turned into Market Place when we heard a loud noise coming from behind us. I t was a German 'plane machine gunning the pedestrians in the area. A man rushed out from the small dress shop next to Huins shoe shop (now The 3 cooks) and dragged my mum and me inside. There, he sat mum down and made her a cup of tea, and even at that young age I remember being impressed by his solicitude. It was not until many years later when I was reading about the attack in a book that I learned that it took place on November 9th 1940. My sister was born on November 10th!
A month later we were at home on Back Hill (Ipsley St). It was early evening and my mother had just put my sister in her pram and was preparing her bottle. There was no question of putting her upstairs, mum kept us together until we all went to bed, saying if we were to go in the bombing, we'd all go together! Dad was in the kitchen having a wash and shave preparatory to going either to the pub over the road, The Alma Tavern, or to Home Guard duty. I was sitting in my little armchair reading Peter Rabbit when we heard a 'plane and dad shouted 'that's not one of ours' and the world exploded.
I was thrown across the room, the doors and the windows blew in showering my sisters' pram with glass; fortunately mum had pulled up the hood and put the apron in place for warmth and to shade her from the light. She hadn't given her the bottle, which was fortunate as we heard that a baby over the road had his bottle shatter in his face, fortunately he wasn't badly hurt. Mum gathered up my sister and herded us under the stairs. I remember seeing our cat go flying past with his fur on end, and dad said the canary was lying on the bottom of the cage. After the All Clear, my gran who lived down the road sent my cousin up to fetch us, and the only time in the whole war I remember being afraid was as he carried me down the road and a 'plane came over, he told me not to worry, it was one of ours.
Next day my dad went back to bury the canary, and as he was searching for something to wrap it in, it sat up and started to cheep. Dad nearly had a heart attack! I believe that quite few people were killed in the raid as bombs fell on Glover St at t he back of us, and Izods yard at the front, and these direct hits resulted in casualties, one I was told was the small cousin of a girl who later became one of my friends at High school and with whom I am still in contact. The council later built blast walls at the back of our houses, near the doors and a static water tank on the open ground opposite,but that thankfully was our last raid.
At school ( the Board school at the top of Back Hill, now the Youth centre) we took our gas masks every day and periodically the head teacher would blow a whistle which indicated the start of an air raid. We would then troop across the playground to a large air raid shelter where we would sit and sing Ten Green Bottles or One Man went to Mow all the way through, then the whistle would blow again for the end of the raid and we would troop back.At the end of the war we had a street party in grans back yard which she shared with three other families and for the first time in the memory of most of us there was no fear of the sirens.
