Ruth's War

After WW2 started, my grandad (Pop) thought Harwich would be a dangerous place for his family – so he moved them to the East End of London. 

He wasn’t the only one. My husband’s grandad moved his family from here to London too and they were all there during the Blitz.

One day my family came out of the bomb shelter to find their house destroyed so my nana said they were going home. I don’t think she’d wanted to go to London in the first place.

They retrieved what they could and headed for Liverpool Street only to find the station closed. “Where are you going?” a man asked. “Harwich,” my nana said. “You’ll be lucky,” he said. “There’s nothing left of it. The whole town has been flattened.”

Fortunately it wasn’t true. When my mum told me stories about being in London during the Blitz, that was always the part where she’d get emotional – remembering how her mum, a tough little lady in her 30s, had gone to pieces thinking her parents must be dead.

Pop was one of the many who took part in the evacuation of Dunkirk.

I’ve just published Ruth’sWar on Kindle. It was first published as a pocket novel back in 1991 and later by Linford in Large Print.

It’s a novella, so just a short read. 77p from Amazon.uk here and $1.31 from Amazon.com here.

This is not their story, but I have dedicated it to the memory of my parents, my grandparents and my Uncle Frank.

Special thanks to Rob for doing the cover for me!