NextBackWe lived about two miles from the town centre on Studley road and our garden abutted the BSA perimeter. Machine guns being tested could be heard all day and it was obvious that this factory would become a target for the Luftwaffe. Redditch was in fact subject to a keen interest from the Luftwaffe, quite out of proportion to its size as it had become a major contributor to the war effort. Although the two factories were at opposite ends of the town, they merited individual attention from the German pilots. Because my father worked on permanent 'night shifts' at High Duty Alloys, and this was when the bulk of bombing raids took place, night time was a period of nail biting anxiety for my mother. Having just recently given up her little house in Blaenau Ffestiniog, she may well have been having second thoughts about the move. The Luftwaffe would pose no threat to Blaenau however and so safe was it considered, the Crown Jewels and the contents of the Tate gallery slept peacefully there throughout the war years in a disused quarry.
What an upheaval this must have been for my mother, a total contrast to her former Victorian life style where she had been cocooned by her parents, now she was on her own. As the air raids intensified so did her apprehension about my father. Sitting each night, in a blacked out room or air raid shelter listening to the 'Banshee' wail of the air raid siren or the characteristic pulsating drone of German bombers overhead must have been rather unnerving. Worse still, the distant "crump" of bombs may have conjured up visions of some dedicated Luftwaffe Untertoffizier determined to eliminate my father, his finger pressed to the bomb release button patiently circling over High Duty Alloys until my father came into his sights. Then, with an exultant cry of “Take zat you Velsh Sehweinhund"! He would unload his deadly cargo on the 'Stamp shop' where my father worked.
