Denise Flude

My grandfather, Roger William Thompsell, was in the Home Guard and was on duty the night of the Blitz.

On that night the air raid siren sounded and my grandmother, my mum, aged 4, and her siblings who lived right in the city centre in Queen Victoria Road, went with hundreds of others to the air raid shelter for the duration of the raid. 

When they returned they found their house destroyed and my grandad had been injured by a stray piece of shrapnel which had hit him in the throat. My Gran was told he had been taken to Gulson Road Hospital but by the time she arrived there he had died. She was left with four children, no home and no husband.