The Night the Bombs Fell
NextBack“I was about 10 when the war started. "I remember the first time that the air-raid siren went, we had just finished stirring the Christmas cake and we all dived under the table. Then the Council built an air-raid shelter lit by candles. We had only got a small back garden but it was in there, brick-built with a concrete top. the size of a small room. In the one side was a large square made of cement which you could knock out easily if the entrance was blocked. However, if you went out that way you would have landed in the brook. I don't think we had a door, just a piece of blackout curtain over the entrance. On cold nights my mum would take one of the old paraffin heated Valor stoves in and the place would stink of paraffin. 'The air-raid warning would usually go about six or seven at night and we went in the shelter every time. Mum would take our 'Blackpool' case packed with clothes. The next door neighbours also used the shelter so there would be ten of us altogether two mothers and eight children. The children's ages ranged from two to ten. My mum had made bunk beds out of an old iron cot and we slept three or four to each bunk bed. Our mothers would sit on a chair knitting or sewing, never idle.” Usually the all-clear would go two or three hours later but sometimes it didn't go all night- Sometimes the air-raid warning would sound as soon as you were back in the house and you would have to go back into the shelter again.”
