"I lived at 241 Gors Avenue. On the first of the "3 nights" we were visiting an aunt who lived further down Gors Avenue when the siren went. We went to the make-shift air raid shelter in the cupboard under the stairs. We heard a loud banging on the front door and an ARP Warden told us to get out since there was an incendiary bomb burning away on the roof.

The second night we were at home. The siren went and at about 8.30 there was a rush of hot air, a muffled boom and dust everywhere. Our house had been hit by a bomb. We got out scrambling over broken glass and rubble and eventually made our way to the Gospel Hall near the end of Meadow Street. We slept on chairs while the WVS made cups of tea.

The following day we were not allowed back to our house (and in fact never went back there again). My brother, Haydn and I had been in our pyjamas when the bomb struck so we had nothing except what we were wearing. We were given some second-hand clothes by the WVS and made our way on foot to an aunts house in Evans Terrace. This was Friday and the siren went again at about 8.00 p.m.

This night was a particularly heavy raid and we took cover in our Aunts air raid shelter which was up the back garden in an area which had probably been a quarry. Towards the end of the raid my aunt, who was an air raid warden came into the anderson shelter and said "if you want to pray now would be a good time." There was a parachute land mine coming down and it was going to land very close to us indeed. As luck had it that land mine did not explode or I doubt that I would be telling the tale.

On the Saturday we evacuated ourselves from Swansea and headed to relatives in the Rhondda Valley. As we made our way to the old bus station near the back of the market I still have visions of a fireman literally asleep on his feet playing a hose onto smouldering rubble which was all that was left of a shop. As we crossed Oxford Street to walk down the side of the market there was a terrific explosion up towards Castle Street. An unexploded bomb had been put onto a lorry ready to be taken away and it exploded killing the bomb disposal team.

I have many other memories of seeing my wonderful little town ablaze from horizon to horizon. Also when we as children had not seen sweets for many a long month I remember an absolute mountain of wrapped toffees being dumped by the lorryload at the rubbish tip at the end of Meadow Street. Unfortunately they stunk to high heaven and were possibly taken from a ship which had been hit by a torpedo or mine in nearby waters.

My niece and I are aiming to come back to Swansea and make a film based on my own boyhood and wartime memories of the town. Hopefully this will happen in the quite near future."

David Davies