The Rolling Stone

    One day I received a letter from Mum and Dad saying they had been bombed out not a direct hit but two bombs had landed in close proximity one at the side of the house and one at the front,  they were in the air raid shelter at the time, they felt the force of the blast but they were safe, thank goodness. When the all clear sounded they came out of the shelter and were amazed at what they found. Mum had been ironing when the sirens went, Dad said wait a minute Maud, let me go in first, [he always called her by her second name although, and I liked her first name, Eleanor, best.] Mum followed him in,  The washing that had been ironed had been lifted, still neatly folded onto the floor with a pile of soot on top, a wooden biscuit barrel was still standing up right on the sideboard but was split open right down one side and all the biscuits and the lid, had been blown out on to the floor.  

   A leather three piece suit had been pitted with thousands of tiny shards of glass from the shattered windows, the shards, so neat they could have been cut by hand.   A chimney pot had been deposited through the roof on to an up stairs bedroom floor.

  The house was completely un-inhabitable.

   Mum and Dad managed to salvage a few personal belongings and had to join many other bomb victims in temporary shelter where they were found a bed to sleep on and some food.   The next day they went home to salvage what furniture and anything else they could, and made arrangements for it to be put into storage, boarded up the house and with just a few belongings caught a train to Newquay, Cornwall.

   As they were traveling an air raid started, they had just reached Truro when the train came to a halt and started rocking violently.    Mum said they watched the dog fights in the sky between our Spitfires and the Luftwaffe.   By now it was dark and the search lights were sweeping across the night sky, picking out the enemy planes.   The noise from the Ack. Ack, guns was deafening and terrifying.   When the air raid was over, the train carried on its way and they finally reached Newquay and they were fortunate enough to find a bed and breakfast.   The following morning, Dad, having already been bombed out of work in London, managed to find a very menial job, peeling potatoes, in a local restaurant.   This made me feel much better knowing that they were no longer two hundred and fifty miles away, although they still weren’t allowed to visit me.