The war as it was for me

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Liz Geuken of the CSV BBC Coventry and Warwickshire Action Desk on behalf of “May” Martha Godden and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

They started — well, they didn’t give us time to have our tea. The men hadn’t had their tea, and they bombed us for seven hours! It wasn’t nice at all and I don’t want to live it again. I don’t want anyone to live it. My husband and the man next door tried to calm us down and laughed, saying “They haven’t given us time to have our tea!” It was just my husband and I; you didn’t want to have children then.

We used to go to my mother’s at the weekend so we got a bit of peace. My husband did his fire service so he couldn’t leave the city. He wanted to volunteer for the army but they said he was doing more important work here. I was glad because I didn’t want him to go!

The men had to go and do fire service; they had to do so many nights watching for incendiaries.

It was a horrible time; I don’t want to live it again.

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