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Maureen was born the day that WW2 conflict started
A WOMAN born on the day the Second World War broke out 70 years ago today has told how she and her family were lucky to survive the conflict.
A WOMAN born on the day the Second World War broke out 70 years ago today has told how she and her family were lucky to survive the conflict.Celebrating her 70th birthday today, Maureen Heath has told how the war separated her from her parents when she was just nine months old. She was evacuated with her older brothers, Dennis and Brian, and sister, Eunice, to Monmouthshire, in Wales, because their home in East London was near the docks – a major bombing target.
Maureen, of The Grove, in Market Deeping, had regular visits from her mother and father, who was an air raid warden.
She said: "It must have been difficult for my older brothers and sister being away from mum and dad. When Monmouthshire started being targeted about a year later, mum brought us home. She said if we were going to die, we were going to die at home."
Maureen said they were lucky to escape the bombs which fell in her street.
She said: "We were lucky to survive. Pieces of the incendiary bombs reached us though, shaking and breaking our windows with glass flying everywhere. One piece also went down my pyjama top and burnt me when I was about four or five years old."
One of Maureen's most vivid memories was when she was about five years old.
"I was with my brothers when a doodlebug came flying over and the engine cut out. We panicked, but my brother Dennis threw us to the floor and laid over us to protect us," she said.
She also recalled a gas cradle, which she used to be put in as a baby, and suits they had to wear in the air raid shelters to keep them warm.
Maureen says being so young partially protected her from the horror of war.
"When the air raid sirens went off and we went into the shelters there was panic, but I remember a whirl of excitement.
"I was too young to realise the fear and horror of it all."
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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