Grace told her story on the BBC Wales Bus. The following is a transcription based on the interview.

I had joined the ARP (Air Raid Precautions) before the war and then I was in a post stationed in Bonymaen and we had a blitz up there and, well, the bombs were dropped and all the telephones were out of order, so there was no way of getting in touch to get an ambulance.

My husband, who was my boyfriend then, he got a bike and he rode to Llansamlet to the station where the nurses were. He was going through Llansamlet and he didn't know whether to get on or off because the incendiaries were dropping all round him. And when he got to the ambulance station, he dropped the bike outside and ran in and gave a message and said that there was an ambulance needed.

They put an ambulance out and they ran over his bike! So he was so shocked and tired, they could see that he wasn't very well, you know, so they made him go to bed. And before he'd gone, he'd made me promise that I'd wait for him till he came back before going home. So I promised. But they put him to bed and he went fast asleep and he didn't come back till quarter-past-three the following morning.

All the wardens were asking me, did I want company to go home, and I said, 'No, I promised I'd wait,' so I said, 'I'll keep my promise.' So, he said then, of course that they could see he was in shock and so, I don't whether they gave him a sedative or what, but anyway, he was only sixteen then.

So, we had the ambulance down because we had a couple of people killed that night and a couple of people had lost limbs, you know. So that was one night. During the Three Day Blitz I think I was the only woman warden out on the third night and my mother had gone up to her sister because she was afraid we were going to have it again that night.

I remember troops in the area during the war they were mostly Americans there and I remember there was one man there, he was huge, a coloured gentleman and he was over six foot tall and to see him walk down the road, everybody used to go out and look at him. When they were going through the village, the traffic was getting snarled up and they were stopping for it to clear, we would make cups of tea for the ones that were stationed outside, but then they'd come and they'd say you have to move on, you know, so we couldn't do it for them all.

We had entertained a bomb disposal team in the chapel one evening and they were asked why are you in that, and they said, well they needed people that didn't have families, not for people to be left grieving. Most of them were orphans or didn't have anyone. The following day they were outside Ben Evans defusing a bomb and it went off and they were all killed.

I had four brothers in the army, a brother-in-law in the Air Force, my husband in the Air Force and one was in Dunkirk and he came back from there and had leave. He was then posted to Burma which was a shock. I had another brother, a prisoner of war in Germany for four years and a younger brother went to Palestine. There were three that did service abroad and my husband trained as a pilot in South Africa, he was there for two years.

My memories at the end of the war were mostly of relief. There was a gentleman whose daughter I was friendly with and they had said they were going up to Kilvey Hill to watch the bonfires all round Swansea. So they said, 'Why don't you join us?' So I did. I walked up to the top and it was a sight to see, all around Swansea, all those bonfires being lit.

Grace Eileen Watkins

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