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We could hear the drone of the German planes and the bombs coming down, thinking we would be killed any moment. It went on till the all clear at 7am next morning. We all thought, "oh for a cup of tea!!", only to find out there was no electricity, gas or water.
Most of Coventry's buildings all gone or damaged, the beautiful cathedral burnt out.
How wonderful the Salvation Army were handing out cups of tea to the weary firemen up the ladders, as the raid kept on hour after hour. The air raid wardens and Red Cross all risking their lives.
The morning after the raid we heard the news that where Ron lived they had a land mine come down, and it fetched four houses down and damaged the rest of the houses with the blast. It was lucky that Ron had been at my home that night, as the ceiling had come down on his bed, also the bath. When we went back to collect his clothes out of the chest of drawers to pack, the blast had sent cement and dust all through his clothing, they looked as if moths had eaten them. What strange things a blast can do.
I can remember about 4pm you could see people pushing prams with mattresses on them, making their way to the outskirts of Coventry, to the country - once there laying the mattresses down for the night so as to feel safe, as we had many bad raids.
Ron was in the Home Guard. He used to come home from work at teatime, had to change into his uniform and do all night on duty - then get changed again to be in work for 7:30am.
A lovely dining room suite we had put away a few months earlier was in storage up the town. Of course it had been blown up. We went round to see houses to rent; there were such large bomb craters you could not get near the front doors, windows all blown out, just black material covering them.
When I look back and think of all the air raids we had to go through, we were lucky to be able to live to bring up three children into this world, and as the years have gone on we now have seven grandchildren, and seven great grandchildren, and last December we reached our Diamond Wedding.
I think someone must have been watching over us all these past years.
Images on this page taken from the 1942 Coventry Corporation publication "The City We Loved".
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