- Contributed by听
- CovWarkCSVActionDesk
- People in story:听
- Doris Hopkins, Frank Hopkins, May Lucas, Mabel Hopkins, Len Hopkins, Gladys Hopkins, Joan Hopkins, David Hopkins
- Location of story:听
- Coventry
- Background to story:听
- Civilian
- Article ID:听
- A7623461
- Contributed on:听
- 08 December 2005
This story was submitted to the People's War Website by Tim Davoile on behalf of Doris Hopkins and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
I was cycling home this one day, I鈥檇 arranged to meet Les, when the sirens went. There wasn鈥檛 time to get to Gas Street, so we decided to use the Anderson shelter at the back of Mabel鈥檚 house (19 Stephen Street). The air raid had already started when Les went to check on one of the neighbours. As he put his hand on the back door handle the blast (from a bomb) drew him into the house then threw him out again. The man who lived there was lying on the couch, he was dead but there wasn鈥檛 a mark on him. After a while we decided to risk going to Gas Street to join the rest of the family. People would often save members of their family a place in the shelter. Mind you, they were called shelters but they weren鈥檛 all that safe really, I mean, the gasometer was only yards away and they (the Germans) were aiming for that. Anyway, we couldn鈥檛 find them there so we set off for the one on the Foleshill Road and they were all there. The following morning, as we were making our way home a warden approached us and said, 鈥渢hank God it鈥檚 you Mrs Hopkins, the Gas Street shelter took a direct hit. They鈥檙e digging for you right now鈥.
Number 7 (Stephen Street) had been badly damaged in the raid, it wasn鈥檛 flattened, but it was unliveable in. The windows were blown out, the doors were off and there was a lot of structural damage. Les took one look and said he was going off for a minute, to phone his brother, Cecil. He was going to let them know we were all all right, because they would hear about the bombings on the wireless and worry. Once Cecil heard how we had been bombed out he told Les we could all stay with him until we could sort ourselves out. Cecil lived in a small house near Ludlow, with his wife and two children. Well, they gave up their beds, some slept on chairs, and some even slept on the floor. After a couple of days Les and myself went to stay with his mother at a little village called Crumps Brooke near Clee Hills.
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