Cultureshock

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Video transcript

The Baby in the Bombardment. My name is Don Taylor and my story was told to me by my friend Tommy. As dawn approached on Wednesday 16th December 1914, three German warships appeared out of the morning mist. They started to shell the Headland’s surrounding areas. The attack lasted just forty minutes, which caused severe damage to the shops and houses in the nearby area. More than a hundred people were killed and more were injured. Fortunately, however, Tommy’s gran, Mrs Marshall, had been out of the house at the time shopping. When she returned home she found her home was completely blown to pieces. It was a complete shambles and the roof and walls were a pile of rubble. I can’t imagine what it must have felt like to come home to see your house in ruins. As she searched through the remains, she discovered that all her worldly possessions had been destroyed. She made her way to where the kitchen had been to see if any had survived. In the corner amongst the remains of a broken table, she saw what looked like the remains of a baby covered in dust and dirt. She clambered over the wreckage of her kitchen, lifted the china figure out of the rubble to find she was still surprisingly intact. The ironic part of the tale was that the baby was in fact a German china mustard pot in the shape of a baby’s head. The mustard pot has survived to this day and is still a treasured possession of the family.