Your Wartime Memories

There were still a few Laughs!

Leg-in
My Dad was away in the army in India, at home there was just me, Mam, and my little sister. We had been having a few nights when the warning sirens sounded and going into the shelter, not getting any sleep and no bombing action near us, I decided that next time the siren sounded I would stay in bed.

Inevitably the siren sounded and my Mam shouted me to come down-stairs and get into the shelter. I told her nothing was going to happen so I was staying in bed. Suddenly that was an almighty bang which shook the bedroom windows, I leapt out of bed and made a grab for my pants and ran down-stairs and into the shelter.

We shared our shelter with a couple of neighbours during the raids, they didn’t have their own and would have had to use a damp communal one. Well there was I, stood in the doorway, finding it quite a task to put my pants on, then my Mam let out a big chuckle and pointed out that what I thought was my pants was her corsets.

Paratrooper
One of our neighbours owned a motor bike. During the war we’d been warned that German paratroopers may be dropping to start fires near the factories so the bombers could pin-point their targets.
It was about midnight when my great aunt Nellie was in the shelter with her family when the door burst open and in came a figure in a leather coat, a leather helmet and goggles. Aunt Nellie grabbed a lemonade bottle which was in the shelter and whacked it over his head. Unfortunately it turned out to be our motor bike rider neighbour who was on his way home from work when he got caught in the air raid.
Tom Connor

Gnashers
We were taken by surprise once when the bombing started before a warning was sounded. We were soon in our shelter but I heard our neighbour next door shouting to his wife to hurry up, “Hang on” she said “I’ll get my teeth” her husband shouted at the top of his voice, “They’re dropping bl*****g bombs not meat pies.”
Name Supplied