ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

“This story was submitted to the site by the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio Derby’s CSV Action Desk with Gerald Towers permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditionsâ€�

In 1939 I was evacuated. Put on a coach. Goes to Warwick. No record of us in Warwick so put back on coach and finished up in Chellaston, about three miles from Derby. There for a couple of years, well eighteen months. After I left, the place I was evacuated to had a bomb in the back garden!
I lived in Derby, in the centre of Derby. Where we lived was originally a farm. Parents decided to dig an air raid shelter, but had to give up halfway through as where they were digging was right into a pig sty.
I saw the bomber that bombed Rolls Royce. It came right over the house after it dropped its bombs.
VJ Day in the Market Place. I hadn't been in the airforce all thst long and was enjoying the celebrations in the Market Place when I was grabbed by half a dozen people, raised shoulder high and paraded round the market place as a hero.
Just previous to that, they said we could come home for VJ Day if we lived somewhere within thirty miles from where we were stationed, which was Winslow at that time. So everybody lived in Manchester! No matter where they lived everyone had an address in Manchester.
The other thing was: they sent us out to Japan as the occupation force in 1947. Uptil then in three years I hadn't seen a single person from Derby. I walked into the billet there and there were two other people from Derby in the billet.
I've never seen them since.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.