A CHILD’S PERSPECTIVE
Day was born as Dorothy Smout in 1934 as the youngest child of her mother (also called Dorothy) and father Samuel. With her elder sister Joan, the Smout family lived in Mulliner Street which was located between the northern Coventry areas of Foleshill and Stoke. The street was surrounded by industrial works that were converted to war production from 1939. This included a large factory that was run by the Admiralty and another that made ammunition.
Despite being only five years old when war broke out, Day still has memories of that day, “I do remember it because I was in hospital having my tonsils out. I heard about it by word of mouth rather than radio because my parents came to visit me and I overheard them talking. It didn’t mean a lot to me of course because I was so young.”
“The war didn’t worry us”
Day’s father Sam was a carpenter by trade and worked as a patternmaker for the Armstrong Whitworth aircraft company. Armstrong Whitworth’s factory was based in the village of Baginton south of Coventry and made military aircraft such as the A.W.38 Whitley medium bomber. Patternmaking for this work was a skilled job and as such Sam was exempt
