Sheffield Blitz survivor shares her memories 80 years on

Maureen Owen was four years old at the time of the Blitz but she still feels her body tense up whenever she hears a siren, and has vivid images in her mind of the damage that was left behind.

Although she was only young, her parents and relatives spoke a lot about what happened during those nights, and she believes she took a lot of that information in.

Maureen said: “As we approach the anniversary of the Blitz, even though I was only very young, I shall have my own memories, especially when I hear the sirens.”

She wonders whether it might be a reaction that she has got from her parents whenever they heard the siren.

Maureen added: “I can see it all quite vividly in my mind when I think about it. Even now, whenever I hear the noise of a siren, my body goes tense.”

She described the sequence of events that followed the siren warnings, which included her mother putting her in a siren suit.

The 84-year-old explained: “When the sirens went, I was used to being put into my siren suit and carried into the Anderson shelter, which had been built into our back garden for the use of my family and the family next door. I now realise that on this particular night we could hear the bombs dropping.

“My father and the man from next door kept looking out of the shelter and because we lived on a hill in Walkley they could see where some bombs had been dropped over the city.”

Maureen told how Anderson shelters were typically built into people's gardens and shared between two families, like the one she was in.

She remembers their shelter having two small bunks, the outside being made of corrugated iron with no grass on top, and with a step leading down to it.

The children - Maureen and the boy from next door who was nine months younger than her - may not have got to see the fire in the distance for themselves, but they were certainly aware of the noise.