I was six years old in the March of that year and my father came home on leave in the May, just in time for the bombing. When the sirens went we went to our own shelter which was in the yard. Father was not happy with this because he felt that we were too near the river and that the bombers could be trying to get the shipping. He decided that we should move to a shelter away from the bank top and he chose Wilkinson's.
An air raid warden stopped father and told him that the shelter had received a direct hit about ten minutes before...
So my parents and our neighbours set off for Wilkinson's shelter with my father carrying me. At the bottom of King Street, the air was full of dust and the smell of wall lime. Even today when I pass an old building being demolished that smell of lime dust takes me back. An air raid warden stopped father and told him that the shelter had received a direct hit about ten minutes before.
It had been the habit of my cousins the Franklands to go to Wilkinson's because it was more fun to be with a crowd than in their own shelter at home. Father and mother knew many of the people that used Wilkinsons and they at once feared the worst. Mother and I together with our neighbours were sent to Northumberland Street Mission Hall which was used as a collection point for the rescued. Father was in uniform and at once began digging for his sisters and nephews. I saw the injured come into the Hall covered in dust and shocked. Some were children I went to school with.
Cousins Arthur and 'Sandy' Frankland had been in the shelter. Sandy died and Arthur was saved but Arthur was never the same again.
I do not think that children of my age fully realised the horror because two or three days later I and my school friends were out again looking for shrapnel in the streets.