Spirit of war can help us get through Covid

WHAT a lovely column from Pam Pearce (“Recalling mum’s wartime spirit”, Opinion, January 5). It awakened a memory my late mother Mavis told me. She was nine years old. In the area she lived in, bombs seemed to be dropping quite a lot. She normally went to the air raid shelter at the top of Dakeyne Street, which was off Carlton Road.

But one night she and her family did not go. Two bombs had been dropped in the road nearby and glass and rubble were flying everywhere. A factory and a bakery were hit so instead of running into the Dakeyne Street shelter they went to a shop on the corner of Handel Street.

The raid seemed to last all night (to a child of nine it would).

The following morning my grandad Frank and my uncle Frank junior went to see the damage caused. The Dakeyne Street air raid shelter was gone. Among all the rubble there were hands, feet, and parts of bodies. People were crying and being sick at the dreadful scene.

These awful memories stayed with my mum and sometimes would play on her mind. She had three young sisters – Elsie, Irene and Doris. They all stayed home, although some of their friends were evacuated. Mum and her sisters should have been in the shelter. It’s fate that they never went.

Mum went through hard times in coal queues, struggling, like lots of families did, just to survive.

She grew up, met dad, had four daughters, and anyone that knew her would tell you she had a heart as big as a bucket. Those war years were hard. But that motto

“keep smiling through” said it all.

Covid is awful. But we’ve all come this far. We are still here. We have to be strong and stay safe. I will take a leaf out of Pam’s mum Iris’s book. That’s a great suggestion. Happy new year.

Jean Taylor Basford