OLD LADY WRITES A THRILLER

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24141, 6 December 1941, Page 16

OLD LADY WRITES A THRILLER

A WOMAN aged 84 was lately acclaimed by Britain's journalists as the author of the "finest piece of reporting in the war." At the annual conference .of the National Union of Journalists, in Man- ' Chester, Ernest Hunter, the President, read extracts from a letter sent to a well-known London reporter by his mother. All the assembled journalists agreed that none of them could improve on it for graphic descriptivo writing. Here it is:— . "I was knocked up a bit by the Blitz. My girl was out. These days you do not know when they will come /back. So I stayed up till after twelve. S" did not come. I went to bed. iNo one in tho bouse but myself. 1 could not sleep- , . "About 20, past four I heard the loudest noise I have ever heard in my life. 1 thought to myself: 'lhey are pulling rav house down.' ... "L jumped out of bed trembling, trying to put my clothes on. I could hear everything tumbling down around me. and the wind and the rain. -My bedroom was all right, so I tried to ' go down the stairs. They were not tl "l 0 * started/with a candle, but the wind put it out of my hand. I tried to creep down in the dark. There was ' no front door. So the wind was blow-

ing me back. I go£ back to the room. Everything was falling. I knocked for the lady next door. She did not answer "Then someone came. I shouted." What had happened was that four heavy bombs had dropped on the promenade in front of her house oil the north-east coast.