High Explosive Bomb at Ashbourne Road

Infant on The Home Front

Prologue
Born the youngest of three boys, sons of a single parent, a mother who had lost a fourth son (from meningitis) and a husband (from tuberculosis), I was just eight when the war started.

We were what today might be described as a family with a ‘deprived background’. Early widowhood had driven the surviving family from home ownership at Oakhill Road Norbury into a terraced LCC council dwelling for a weekly rent of ten and fourpence receipted in a rent book with twopenny orange stamps. (Firstly, Edward VIII and then George VI)

Five of us slept in two rooms. An out of doors lavatory; the bath with a copper in the kitchen to heat the bath water weekly; and a ‘kitchener’ in the living-room for warmth. Those were the basic facilities of 3 Bavant Road, Norbury, London SW16 and the adjacent dwellings.

Mother worked as a telephonist in Saville Row for the SBAC (Society of British Aircraft — now Aerospace — Constructors-Telephone No: Regent 5215) and we three children were cared for by our resident grandmother who was then about sixty. She had experienced the horrors of the First World War and feared what the ‘Boche’ would do this time. My eldest brother was 19 and my elder brother 15 at the outbreak of war. Both started working in the City of London when they were about 14.

Wars and Rumours of Wars
Spain, Abyssinia, Nazism, Hitler, Munich, Poland and finally the 3rd September 1939 dawned.

Preparations included the issue of gasmasks (with a sour smell of rubber and a misting lens); making black-out blinds; taping-up the window panes; eldest brother called up as he was a TA volunteer; trees and gate-posts painted with broad black and white stripes, kerbs painted with yellow segments; vehicle head-lamps fitted with filters; the London Defence Volunteers emerged: a ‘Civic Restaurant’ opened in a disused cinema in the High Street; blackout rehearsals at night initiated by air-raid sirens wailing; the issue of identity cards (CLDD 110 3), ration books and arrival of ‘square’ scissors.

Funny Incidents
There was a demonstration at the top of Streatham Common in a corrugated iron ‘theatre’. Bales of straw were stacked on the stage and ignited by a man in a boiler suit. A very lively blaze ensued. Was there a fire engine to hand?

Not so. We were shown how one person would be able to extinguish the fire with a bucket of water and a stirrup pump. This taught us how we could deal with incendiary bombs if they pierced the roofs of our houses. We were urged to clear our lofts and attics of all combustible material.

Suddenly iron railings, gates and chain linked fencing were removed seemingly overnight from all public parks and buildings and schools.

Directional road signs were removed.

We were urged to ‘Dig for Victory’ and informed that ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’

Bus and tram windows were sealed with a yellow mesh to prevent glass fragmentation during air-raids. This prevented passengers from seeing their progression along the route.

Before long passengers, to improve visibility, would peel off the corners of the mesh.

London Transport put up notices:
‘I trust you’ll pardon my correction but that stuff is there for your protection’

to which a wag had added:

‘Thank you for your information but I cannot see the ruddy station’

and another:

‘Face the driver, raise your hand, you’ll find that he will understand’

and modified:

‘I know he’ll understand, the cuss — but will he stop the ruddy bus?’

Personalities of people changed. The quiet and inconspicuous spinster next door in the corner house with Northborough Road suddenly emerged as an Air Raid Warden resplendent in a navy blue uniform, with gas mask, hand-rattle, white lanyard, whistle and steel helmet.

The First Air-Raid
And when the 3rd September arrived, Chamberlain’s broadcast brought the crisis to a head to anyone who could listen to a wireless set (some were still powered by an accumulator). For us, it was our family and the United Dairies milkman doing his morning delivery from his horse drawn cart.

Immediately after the announcement the first air raid sirens of the war sounded and, not knowing what was to happen, I panicked, put on my gas mask and rushed into the garden sunshine. I was re-assured by my eldest brother and his girl friend and relaxed when the ‘All-Clear’ sounded.

There were rumours soon that Croydon Airport had been attacked.

That was to be the first of many raids.

Our Air Raid Shelter
One morning there was a commotion in the road. A lorry had arrived with a gang of men. They were delivering the Anderson Shelters to our front gardens. Each terraced house received six curved sections of corrugated iron, six straight sections, four with angled corners, four large red girders, a few smaller girders, a canvas bag with nuts, bolts and fittings and printed instructions.

A bit like flat-pack furniture.

Watching the activity progress up the road towards our house, I noticed that a strong man in the gang could manage to carry simultaneously three curved sections on his back from the lorry to the gardens. Less able men managed only two such sections. It didn’t take very long to supply the components of a shelter to each house.

The following weekend my eldest brother (now a Corporal) was home from the army on a short leave having just been vaccinated. He and my elder brother dug out a large rectangular trench in the back garden. It was about four feet deep and six and a half feet square. The four red girders were placed at the perimeter of the trench, squared up with string across the diagonals and bolted together at the corners. The curved sections were slotted into the girders and bolted at the top. Finally the back and front sections of the shelter were assembled. The front sections provided access to the shelter through a small entrance hole.

I entered the newly erected shelter and smelled the dank atmosphere arising from the mud floor. This ‘dug-out’ was to be our family’s protection during air raids. It occupied most of the little back garden.

The excavated soil was loaded onto the top of the sunken shelter until a great mound was all that could be seen of our refuge apart from the entrance hole.

Whenever it rained the shelter let in water. My elder brother, by mixing and laying a thick fillet of concrete onto the mud surface, solved this problem.

As time went by, neighbours competed for the best-cultivated garden on their shelters and the warmest degree of comfort within. This led to my elder brother painting the inside walls white and installing some means of illumination together with bunks and a small arm-chair just within the entrance.

It all became rather snug.

The Evacuation
The SBAC was evacuated to Harrogate but my mother was found a telephonist’s job for the duration of the war in London with the Finnish Legation.

We have all seen newsreels of large crowds of very young children at railway termini waiting to be transported to safer parts of the country with their luggage, gas masks and identity labels.

But what about the plight of any child left behind?

For a long time there was no school to attend. Similarly placed infants and I played in the streets, some of us collected horse manure in our wooden trolleys (converted from prams) for sale to neighbours and scrumped apples via the network of neighbourhood alleyways.

Friends and I frequently visited the Westminster Bank Sports Ground at Norbury. This had been taken over by the army and an anti-aircraft gun battery installed in the centre of the playing fields.

Armed sentries guarded the entrance gate and we would spend much time watching their routines of arms drill, marching up and down and changing guard each two hours.

At home, we copied the soldiers and mounted guard at our front garden entrances with our toy rifles. I am sure that we became just as smart as the soldiers in our arms drill and sentry duties.

We could see to the North that the sky above London was becoming infested with barrage balloons. There were hundreds of balloons with great tail fins glistening in the sunlight; wires to winches on lorries tethered them.

After a time some private schools opened. A lady with a hearing aid opened a class in the church hall of the Norbury Methodist Church. Mum paid a small fee for my attendance where a dozen or so children sat on the floor in a circle at teacher’s feet to receive lessons.

Later it was full time attendance at a private preparatory school where the standards of other children in the class were high. Suddenly, ‘joined-up’, writing, French lessons and homework presented insoluble problems. Still later I attended a convent school in Thornton Heath where nuns taught us.

Gradually the evacuees returned home and the demand for schools increased. This led to my brief attendance at Kensington Avenue School.

Finally, my school - Norbury Manor - re-opened under the superb leadership of the Headmaster Mr Harry Albon and his excellent teaching staff.

The period of this first evacuation of children had lasted from September 1939 until March 1940.

On my return to Norbury Manor I saw that the cloakrooms had been converted into windowless air-raid shelters and we were each instructed to bring in and store in the shelters an Oxo tin with ‘Iron Rations’ in case of an emergency.

Air Raids
News was bad. The Norwegian Campaign failed. Hitler’s forces advanced across Europe. The Russians defeated the Finns. Russia formed an alliance with Germany, France fell and then there was Dunkirk evacuation.

Winston Churchill had become Prime Minister and now we expected to be invaded by the German Armies from across the English Channel.

As children we might watch the Battle of Britain dogfights in the summer sky and hear the rattle of machine gun fire from the planes above. Sometimes we would see the Spitfires or Hurricanes fly the Victory Roll after a battle. We were near Croydon, Kenley and Biggin Hill Airports.

If we were at school during a daylight raid we would be led into the converted cloakroom air-raid shelters immediately the sirens sounded. The teachers were excellent in maintaining our morale and made us sing songs very loudly throughout the duration of the raids to drown the noise of the battles raging in the neighbourhood.

Then it was the Blitz. Air-raid sirens wailed every evening and into our Anderson shelter we would go. At first it was a novelty to watch the masses of searchlights piercing the dusk and darkness, criss-crossing in the sky in the search for intruders and sometimes illuminating the barrage balloons. A light would suddenly extinguish and then quickly re-light and a pencil of light thrust upwards into the darkness.

The characteristic throbbing of the invaders’ engines could be heard and sometimes an enemy plane would enter a searchlight’s beam, pass through it, and then several lights would quickly sweep over to concentrate on locating that plane that had at first avoided detection. If it were found three or more beams would lock onto the raider and hold it in view for the anti-aircraft guns to try and destroy it.

The noise from the guns was terrific especially when the battery about a mile away at the Westminster Bank Sports Club opened fire. It is not possible to describe the intensity and impact of the noise of an air raid. Sirens wailing, aeroplane engines throbbing purposely to worry the civilian population below, whistles blowing, guns firing and firing and firing, shrapnel from the anti-aircraft shells striking the roofs of the neighbouring houses and sometimes the whistle of descending bombs and the explosions that followed.

And the raids became a nightly routine. Down we went into the dugout as soon as the sirens wailed. Sleeping in the bunks except grandmother who always sat every night in the chair within the entrance. She would leave the wooden door ajar and we could just see the flashes as the anti-aircraft guns fired. When the throbbing of the enemy planes came near she would close the door and we would wait for whatever was to happen.

Looking north from the shelter entrance, the sky sometimes glowed red as London, seven miles away, burned.

A keen interest of my friends and I after raids was to collect shrapnel from the roads and gardens. We gathered masses of it and competed for the best piece. This was the largest and shiniest bit. Sometimes it was still warm from the explosion of the shell; you could detect the pungent odour of the burned TNT. The very best and rarest piece was the remnant of a time-fuse, conical in shape with graduation marks around the surviving part of the circumference.

As I walked to school one morning I saw that a bomb had destroyed a house in my road. It was a heap of rubble but exposed the bedroom wallpaper and fireplaces in the party walls. Heavy Rescue men were clambering over the rubble to recover the occupants.

On another occasion there was a rumour of an interesting event near a factory on Mitcham Common. I biked there and saw that an enormous land-mine had fallen in the back garden of a house near the Common. The mine had not exploded and presumably had been made safe by the army. We were allowed to watch the soldiers who, with a large lorry, were trying to haul the mine out of the ground by ropes slung from the rear of the vehicle and around the mid-riff of the mine. The mine was stubborn and did not budge.

So, as a matter of routine, winter evening after winter evening my grandmother, mother, elder brother and I would leave the back door of our house for the dug-out and remain down there until dawn and the sirens sounding the ‘all-clear’.

Disaster
The bomb landed on our Anderson shelter on the night of Friday the 29th November 1940 during the 92nd raid on Croydon,

The bomb demolished the house beyond our air-raid shelter and wrecked the house next door to that — both in Northborough Road. My house and the house each side of it were rendered unstable. All the five other houses in the terrace were badly damaged at the back. And the roofs of four more houses in Northborough Road were damaged.

A profitable bomb.

It had rained heavily during daylight hours on that day and, exceptionally, the Anderson shelter was flooded. So, prevented by the flood from following our normal routine, the family slept on the ground floor of the house under the dining room table during the air raid.

In the night, there was the scream of bombs falling and a great thump very close to our house. My elder brother (now 16) investigated the situation together with wardens and discovered our bombed Anderson shelter.

After viewing the damage, the authorities pronounced that the bomb had exploded. Re-assured the four of us completed our slumbers until daylight.

In the morning I (now 9) went down the garden to look at the shelter. There was a hole about two feet in diameter that had been punched directly through the corner of the shelter where my head would have been had there been no rain. It was all very interesting. I started to throw stones and lumps of clay down into the hole. It was obviously very deep as there was a delay before the splash from my missiles hitting the surface of the water below.

I felt some personal pride in our having been so targeted and invited a few friends in to see the hole where the bomb had fallen. With me, they threw some more missiles down the shaft.

Later that morning, my eldest brother (now 20) quite by chance arrived at our house. He had recently returned from Norway and had been detailed to drive from Folkestone to Leeds in an old three-ton civilian lorry loaded with signal stores but called in at Bavant Road on the way.

In due course the police and wardens arrived and together with my two brothers re-examined the newly made hole in our shelter. It was then pronounced that the bomb had not, after all, exploded and the house was evacuated forthwith.

Bedding and some personal effects including my small bike and our black cat ‘Blackie’ were loaded onto the three-ton lorry and we were all transported to the home of the girl friend of my eldest brother. That was in Goldwell Road, Thornton Heath. There we were to stay for the time being.

By the following Monday morning, my eldest brother had left for Leeds, my mother and elder brother for work in London. I cycled to my school in Norbury.

On the way I passed by my home in Bavant Road. Everything seemed different. It soon became clear that the bomb had exploded over the weekend. Our house was still standing but the windows were blown out. Houses at the foot of the garden had collapsed. For the second time in the war I panicked. I turned my bike around, and sobbing, cycled back to Goldwell Road with the news.

What happened after that is unclear. Blackie was reported to have found his way back to Bavant Road but was never seen again. In a day or two I was taken by my grandmother to reside with her second daughter in Strood, Kent. It was again the habit to sleep downstairs during the German air raids, which appeared to have focussed on Chatham Dockyard and the Short Sunderland factory on the Medway at Rochester.

There was another period without attendance at a school.

The Aftermath
During this 92nd raid on Croydon seventeen high explosive bombs had dropped on the Borough. Seven of the bombs caused no damage five of them having fallen on golf courses and a farm. Our bomb was a delayed action bomb.

While I was not at school in Strood my excellent class teacher at Norbury Manor, Miss L M Scott (Scottie), wrote to me. She set up a procedure of sending to me books of exercises on arithmetic and intelligence tests. I had to post the exercises back to her for marking. This was her way of doing whatever she could to prepare me for entering for the ‘Scholarship’ examinations of which the first was to take place in a few months later in 1941.

Back in Surrey my mother and my elder brother were involved in finding a new home for us. They were introduced to various Requisitioned Properties and, on the basis of the rent she could afford to pay, she decided upon 50 Mayfield Road Thornton Heath.

After some weeks my grandmother and I returned to the new family home and what a home it was.

It was again a terraced house but with very large rooms, three bedrooms (one of my own), a bathroom with a lavatory upstairs, hot running water from the boiler behind the dining-room fire, ’French’ windows that led out to a very long garden with a lawn, strawberry bed, chrysanthemums and horseradish. Our furniture, some of it damaged, had been recovered from our Bavant Road house. In time, a Morrison indoor air-raid shelter was installed in the front room.

I continued my education at Norbury Manor School under the careful tuition of Scottie. I failed the ‘Scholarship’ examination that I sat in 1941 but was successful in 1942.

That gave me a grant-aided place at the Whitgift Middle School, North End, Croydon.

Epilogue

The heroine of this story is my mother who, in her thirties had in the space of a few years, suffered the loss of an infant son, a husband and two homes. The angels were our grandmother for looking after the family and my teachers and the headmaster of Norbury Manor for the outstanding support they gave to all the children particularly during the war years.

There is a note recorded by Mrs Rosemary Sharp a teacher at Norbury Manor in the souvenir booklet published to celebrate its Golden Jubilee in 1982:

‘ I remember too the shock of hearing of the death of a little girl in my class who was killed by the bombing one night and the awful feeling as I wrote ‘deceased’ by her name in the register.’

The SBAC returned to London and my mother worked for the Society until her retirement.

My eldest brother married his girl friend in 1942 before being transported to Egypt where he was baptised, confirmed and commissioned into the Indian Army. He returned home as a Major via El Alamein, Italy and Jubblepore. He and his wife celebrated their Diamond Wedding Anniversary last year.

My elder brother volunteered for the Royal Air Force and won his ‘Wings’ as a Sergeant Navigator having been trained in South Africa. Fortunately, the war ended before he had to fly on operations and he lives now in Surrey with his family

Mother and grandmother survived until their eighties.

In due course the properties in Bavant and Northborough Roads were rebuilt.

As for me at Whitgift Middle School from 1942, I was taught my Catechism and embarked on the mysterious road of adolescence, experienced the doodlebugs and, in due course, attended VE and VJ celebrations in London.

What happened to me after that is another story.

Anthony Mundy 8 December 2003

Infant on The Home Front

Prologue
Born the youngest of three boys, sons of a single parent, a mother who had lost a fourth son (from meningitis) and a husband (from tuberculosis), I was just eight when the war started.

We were what today might be described as a family with a ‘deprived background’. Early widowhood had driven the surviving family from home ownership at Oakhill Road Norbury into a terraced LCC council dwelling for a weekly rent of ten and fourpence receipted in a rent book with twopenny orange stamps. (Firstly, Edward VIII and then George VI)

Five of us slept in two rooms. An out of doors lavatory; the bath with a copper in the kitchen to heat the bath water weekly; and a ‘kitchener’ in the living-room for warmth. Those were the basic facilities of 3 Bavant Road, Norbury, London SW16 and the adjacent dwellings.

Mother worked as a telephonist in Saville Row for the SBAC (Society of British Aircraft — now Aerospace — Constructors-Telephone No: Regent 5215) and we three children were cared for by our resident grandmother who was then about sixty. She had experienced the horrors of the First World War and feared what the ‘Boche’ would do this time. My eldest brother was 19 and my elder brother 15 at the outbreak of war. Both started working in the City of London when they were about 14.

Wars and Rumours of Wars
Spain, Abyssinia, Nazism, Hitler, Munich, Poland and finally the 3rd September 1939 dawned.

Preparations included the issue of gasmasks (with a sour smell of rubber and a misting lens); making black-out blinds; taping-up the window panes; eldest brother called up as he was a TA volunteer; trees and gate-posts painted with broad black and white stripes, kerbs painted with yellow segments; vehicle head-lamps fitted with filters; the London Defence Volunteers emerged: a ‘Civic Restaurant’ opened in a disused cinema in the High Street; blackout rehearsals at night initiated by air-raid sirens wailing; the issue of identity cards (CLDD 110 3), ration books and arrival of ‘square’ scissors.

Funny Incidents
There was a demonstration at the top of Streatham Common in a corrugated iron ‘theatre’. Bales of straw were stacked on the stage and ignited by a man in a boiler suit. A very lively blaze ensued. Was there a fire engine to hand?

Not so. We were shown how one person would be able to extinguish the fire with a bucket of water and a stirrup pump. This taught us how we could deal with incendiary bombs if they pierced the roofs of our houses. We were urged to clear our lofts and attics of all combustible material.

Suddenly iron railings, gates and chain linked fencing were removed seemingly overnight from all public parks and buildings and schools.

Directional road signs were removed.

We were urged to ‘Dig for Victory’ and informed that ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’

Bus and tram windows were sealed with a yellow mesh to prevent glass fragmentation during air-raids. This prevented passengers from seeing their progression along the route.

Before long passengers, to improve visibility, would peel off the corners of the mesh.

London Transport put up notices:
‘I trust you’ll pardon my correction but that stuff is there for your protection’

to which a wag had added:

‘Thank you for your information but I cannot see the ruddy station’

and another:

‘Face the driver, raise your hand, you’ll find that he will understand’

and modified:

‘I know he’ll understand, the cuss — but will he stop the ruddy bus?’

Personalities of people changed. The quiet and inconspicuous spinster next door in the corner house with Northborough Road suddenly emerged as an Air Raid Warden resplendent in a navy blue uniform, with gas mask, hand-rattle, white lanyard, whistle and steel helmet.

The First Air-Raid
And when the 3rd September arrived, Chamberlain’s broadcast brought the crisis to a head to anyone who could listen to a wireless set (some were still powered by an accumulator). For us, it was our family and the United Dairies milkman doing his morning delivery from his horse drawn cart.

Immediately after the announcement the first air raid sirens of the war sounded and, not knowing what was to happen, I panicked, put on my gas mask and rushed into the garden sunshine. I was re-assured by my eldest brother and his girl friend and relaxed when the ‘All-Clear’ sounded.

There were rumours soon that Croydon Airport had been attacked.

That was to be the first of many raids.

Our Air Raid Shelter
One morning there was a commotion in the road. A lorry had arrived with a gang of men. They were delivering the Anderson Shelters to our front gardens. Each terraced house received six curved sections of corrugated iron, six straight sections, four with angled corners, four large red girders, a few smaller girders, a canvas bag with nuts, bolts and fittings and printed instructions.

A bit like flat-pack furniture.

Watching the activity progress up the road towards our house, I noticed that a strong man in the gang could manage to carry simultaneously three curved sections on his back from the lorry to the gardens. Less able men managed only two such sections. It didn’t take very long to supply the components of a shelter to each house.

The following weekend my eldest brother (now a Corporal) was home from the army on a short leave having just been vaccinated. He and my elder brother dug out a large rectangular trench in the back garden. It was about four feet deep and six and a half feet square. The four red girders were placed at the perimeter of the trench, squared up with string across the diagonals and bolted together at the corners. The curved sections were slotted into the girders and bolted at the top. Finally the back and front sections of the shelter were assembled. The front sections provided access to the shelter through a small entrance hole.

I entered the newly erected shelter and smelled the dank atmosphere arising from the mud floor. This ‘dug-out’ was to be our family’s protection during air raids. It occupied most of the little back garden.

The excavated soil was loaded onto the top of the sunken shelter until a great mound was all that could be seen of our refuge apart from the entrance hole.

Whenever it rained the shelter let in water. My elder brother, by mixing and laying a thick fillet of concrete onto the mud surface, solved this problem.

As time went by, neighbours competed for the best-cultivated garden on their shelters and the warmest degree of comfort within. This led to my elder brother painting the inside walls white and installing some means of illumination together with bunks and a small arm-chair just within the entrance.

It all became rather snug.

The Evacuation
The SBAC was evacuated to Harrogate but my mother was found a telephonist’s job for the duration of the war in London with the Finnish Legation.

We have all seen newsreels of large crowds of very young children at railway termini waiting to be transported to safer parts of the country with their luggage, gas masks and identity labels.

But what about the plight of any child left behind?

For a long time there was no school to attend. Similarly placed infants and I played in the streets, some of us collected horse manure in our wooden trolleys (converted from prams) for sale to neighbours and scrumped apples via the network of neighbourhood alleyways.

Friends and I frequently visited the Westminster Bank Sports Ground at Norbury. This had been taken over by the army and an anti-aircraft gun battery installed in the centre of the playing fields.

Armed sentries guarded the entrance gate and we would spend much time watching their routines of arms drill, marching up and down and changing guard each two hours.

At home, we copied the soldiers and mounted guard at our front garden entrances with our toy rifles. I am sure that we became just as smart as the soldiers in our arms drill and sentry duties.

We could see to the North that the sky above London was becoming infested with barrage balloons. There were hundreds of balloons with great tail fins glistening in the sunlight; wires to winches on lorries tethered them.

After a time some private schools opened. A lady with a hearing aid opened a class in the church hall of the Norbury Methodist Church. Mum paid a small fee for my attendance where a dozen or so children sat on the floor in a circle at teacher’s feet to receive lessons.

Later it was full time attendance at a private preparatory school where the standards of other children in the class were high. Suddenly, ‘joined-up’, writing, French lessons and homework presented insoluble problems. Still later I attended a convent school in Thornton Heath where nuns taught us.

Gradually the evacuees returned home and the demand for schools increased. This led to my brief attendance at Kensington Avenue School.

Finally, my school - Norbury Manor - re-opened under the superb leadership of the Headmaster Mr Harry Albon and his excellent teaching staff.

The period of this first evacuation of children had lasted from September 1939 until March 1940.

On my return to Norbury Manor I saw that the cloakrooms had been converted into windowless air-raid shelters and we were each instructed to bring in and store in the shelters an Oxo tin with ‘Iron Rations’ in case of an emergency.

Air Raids
News was bad. The Norwegian Campaign failed. Hitler’s forces advanced across Europe. The Russians defeated the Finns. Russia formed an alliance with Germany, France fell and then there was Dunkirk evacuation.

Winston Churchill had become Prime Minister and now we expected to be invaded by the German Armies from across the English Channel.

As children we might watch the Battle of Britain dogfights in the summer sky and hear the rattle of machine gun fire from the planes above. Sometimes we would see the Spitfires or Hurricanes fly the Victory Roll after a battle. We were near Croydon, Kenley and Biggin Hill Airports.

If we were at school during a daylight raid we would be led into the converted cloakroom air-raid shelters immediately the sirens sounded. The teachers were excellent in maintaining our morale and made us sing songs very loudly throughout the duration of the raids to drown the noise of the battles raging in the neighbourhood.

Then it was the Blitz. Air-raid sirens wailed every evening and into our Anderson shelter we would go. At first it was a novelty to watch the masses of searchlights piercing the dusk and darkness, criss-crossing in the sky in the search for intruders and sometimes illuminating the barrage balloons. A light would suddenly extinguish and then quickly re-light and a pencil of light thrust upwards into the darkness.

The characteristic throbbing of the invaders’ engines could be heard and sometimes an enemy plane would enter a searchlight’s beam, pass through it, and then several lights would quickly sweep over to concentrate on locating that plane that had at first avoided detection. If it were found three or more beams would lock onto the raider and hold it in view for the anti-aircraft guns to try and destroy it.

The noise from the guns was terrific especially when the battery about a mile away at the Westminster Bank Sports Club opened fire. It is not possible to describe the intensity and impact of the noise of an air raid. Sirens wailing, aeroplane engines throbbing purposely to worry the civilian population below, whistles blowing, guns firing and firing and firing, shrapnel from the anti-aircraft shells striking the roofs of the neighbouring houses and sometimes the whistle of descending bombs and the explosions that followed.

And the raids became a nightly routine. Down we went into the dugout as soon as the sirens wailed. Sleeping in the bunks except grandmother who always sat every night in the chair within the entrance. She would leave the wooden door ajar and we could just see the flashes as the anti-aircraft guns fired. When the throbbing of the enemy planes came near she would close the door and we would wait for whatever was to happen.

Looking north from the shelter entrance, the sky sometimes glowed red as London, seven miles away, burned.

A keen interest of my friends and I after raids was to collect shrapnel from the roads and gardens. We gathered masses of it and competed for the best piece. This was the largest and shiniest bit. Sometimes it was still warm from the explosion of the shell; you could detect the pungent odour of the burned TNT. The very best and rarest piece was the remnant of a time-fuse, conical in shape with graduation marks around the surviving part of the circumference.

As I walked to school one morning I saw that a bomb had destroyed a house in my road. It was a heap of rubble but exposed the bedroom wallpaper and fireplaces in the party walls. Heavy Rescue men were clambering over the rubble to recover the occupants.

On another occasion there was a rumour of an interesting event near a factory on Mitcham Common. I biked there and saw that an enormous land-mine had fallen in the back garden of a house near the Common. The mine had not exploded and presumably had been made safe by the army. We were allowed to watch the soldiers who, with a large lorry, were trying to haul the mine out of the ground by ropes slung from the rear of the vehicle and around the mid-riff of the mine. The mine was stubborn and did not budge.

So, as a matter of routine, winter evening after winter evening my grandmother, mother, elder brother and I would leave the back door of our house for the dug-out and remain down there until dawn and the sirens sounding the ‘all-clear’.

Disaster
The bomb landed on our Anderson shelter on the night of Friday the 29th November 1940 during the 92nd raid on Croydon,

The bomb demolished the house beyond our air-raid shelter and wrecked the house next door to that — both in Northborough Road. My house and the house each side of it were rendered unstable. All the five other houses in the terrace were badly damaged at the back. And the roofs of four more houses in Northborough Road were damaged.

A profitable bomb.

It had rained heavily during daylight hours on that day and, exceptionally, the Anderson shelter was flooded. So, prevented by the flood from following our normal routine, the family slept on the ground floor of the house under the dining room table during the air raid.

In the night, there was the scream of bombs falling and a great thump very close to our house. My elder brother (now 16) investigated the situation together with wardens and discovered our bombed Anderson shelter.

After viewing the damage, the authorities pronounced that the bomb had exploded. Re-assured the four of us completed our slumbers until daylight.

In the morning I (now 9) went down the garden to look at the shelter. There was a hole about two feet in diameter that had been punched directly through the corner of the shelter where my head would have been had there been no rain. It was all very interesting. I started to throw stones and lumps of clay down into the hole. It was obviously very deep as there was a delay before the splash from my missiles hitting the surface of the water below.

I felt some personal pride in our having been so targeted and invited a few friends in to see the hole where the bomb had fallen. With me, they threw some more missiles down the shaft.

Later that morning, my eldest brother (now 20) quite by chance arrived at our house. He had recently returned from Norway and had been detailed to drive from Folkestone to Leeds in an old three-ton civilian lorry loaded with signal stores but called in at Bavant Road on the way.

In due course the police and wardens arrived and together with my two brothers re-examined the newly made hole in our shelter. It was then pronounced that the bomb had not, after all, exploded and the house was evacuated forthwith.

Bedding and some personal effects including my small bike and our black cat ‘Blackie’ were loaded onto the three-ton lorry and we were all transported to the home of the girl friend of my eldest brother. That was in Goldwell Road, Thornton Heath. There we were to stay for the time being.

By the following Monday morning, my eldest brother had left for Leeds, my mother and elder brother for work in London. I cycled to my school in Norbury.

On the way I passed by my home in Bavant Road. Everything seemed different. It soon became clear that the bomb had exploded over the weekend. Our house was still standing but the windows were blown out. Houses at the foot of the garden had collapsed. For the second time in the war I panicked. I turned my bike around, and sobbing, cycled back to Goldwell Road with the news.

What happened after that is unclear. Blackie was reported to have found his way back to Bavant Road but was never seen again. In a day or two I was taken by my grandmother to reside with her second daughter in Strood, Kent. It was again the habit to sleep downstairs during the German air raids, which appeared to have focussed on Chatham Dockyard and the Short Sunderland factory on the Medway at Rochester.

There was another period without attendance at a school.

The Aftermath
During this 92nd raid on Croydon seventeen high explosive bombs had dropped on the Borough. Seven of the bombs caused no damage five of them having fallen on golf courses and a farm. Our bomb was a delayed action bomb.

While I was not at school in Strood my excellent class teacher at Norbury Manor, Miss L M Scott (Scottie), wrote to me. She set up a procedure of sending to me books of exercises on arithmetic and intelligence tests. I had to post the exercises back to her for marking. This was her way of doing whatever she could to prepare me for entering for the ‘Scholarship’ examinations of which the first was to take place in a few months later in 1941.

Back in Surrey my mother and my elder brother were involved in finding a new home for us. They were introduced to various Requisitioned Properties and, on the basis of the rent she could afford to pay, she decided upon 50 Mayfield Road Thornton Heath.

After some weeks my grandmother and I returned to the new family home and what a home it was.

It was again a terraced house but with very large rooms, three bedrooms (one of my own), a bathroom with a lavatory upstairs, hot running water from the boiler behind the dining-room fire, ’French’ windows that led out to a very long garden with a lawn, strawberry bed, chrysanthemums and horseradish. Our furniture, some of it damaged, had been recovered from our Bavant Road house. In time, a Morrison indoor air-raid shelter was installed in the front room.

I continued my education at Norbury Manor School under the careful tuition of Scottie. I failed the ‘Scholarship’ examination that I sat in 1941 but was successful in 1942.

That gave me a grant-aided place at the Whitgift Middle School, North End, Croydon.

Epilogue

The heroine of this story is my mother who, in her thirties had in the space of a few years, suffered the loss of an infant son, a husband and two homes. The angels were our grandmother for looking after the family and my teachers and the headmaster of Norbury Manor for the outstanding support they gave to all the children particularly during the war years.

There is a note recorded by Mrs Rosemary Sharp a teacher at Norbury Manor in the souvenir booklet published to celebrate its Golden Jubilee in 1982:

‘ I remember too the shock of hearing of the death of a little girl in my class who was killed by the bombing one night and the awful feeling as I wrote ‘deceased’ by her name in the register.’

The SBAC returned to London and my mother worked for the Society until her retirement.

My eldest brother married his girl friend in 1942 before being transported to Egypt where he was baptised, confirmed and commissioned into the Indian Army. He returned home as a Major via El Alamein, Italy and Jubblepore. He and his wife celebrated their Diamond Wedding Anniversary last year.

My elder brother volunteered for the Royal Air Force and won his ‘Wings’ as a Sergeant Navigator having been trained in South Africa. Fortunately, the war ended before he had to fly on operations and he lives now in Surrey with his family

Mother and grandmother survived until their eighties.

In due course the properties in Bavant and Northborough Roads were rebuilt.

As for me at Whitgift Middle School from 1942, I was taught my Catechism and embarked on the mysterious road of adolescence, experienced the doodlebugs and, in due course, attended VE and VJ celebrations in London.

What happened to me after that is another story.

Anthony Mundy 8 December 2003

7) THE SUMMARY OF MARLENE’S STORY — In London, she details her early memories of being shuttled down the steps of the Public Shelters, of family’s taking night refuge in the London Underground Stations, of gas masks, barrage balloons, sandbags and the daily ordeal of queuing with her Mother for their daily “Rations”. She also details the horror of the Balham Underground Bomb and the subsequent rescue operation in which her father, working as a fireman, was involved…
MARLENE’S STORY — I was born in South West London in 1942 — the same year that the first American G.I’S arrived in the capital city on their way to fight in Europe. My parents called me Marlene, which I always felt an odd choice of name, when Britain was in the middle of a war with Germany! But I have since concluded that their inspiration came from the English version of the wartime biggest song hit, “Lili Marlene” — “My Lilli of the Lamplight”!

Our home was a downstairs maisonette in Tooting Bec, South West London. From the front door a long entrance hall led to the kitchen. There were two main rooms to the left of the hall — one a bedroom and the other a large living room, which in those days, we called the “Front Room”. The right of the hallway led to a roomy square area, where there was a large cupboard and cellar, which was situated directly under the maisonette above. Here two elderly couples — who had already been bombed out of their previous homes — shared the upstairs accommodation between them. When the sirens sounded and the bombs started dropping, they came downstairs to join us. Together we all took cover to the right of our hall!

Sometimes we traipsed to the Public Air Raid Shelter at the top of the road or to the nearby Underground Station. As we lived so near to the Common, we could see the great barrage balloons rising up against the skyline, like huge silver saucers, which seemed to cover the whole of London. Their cables were designed to stop low flights.
Many of the operators were women who valiantly kept them afloat. Sometimes one of these balloons had to be cut free in bad weather and we would gleefully watch them crash into chimney pots or into the trolley bus cables overhead! As soon as we saw these operators getting ready for the launch, we knew that we had about twenty minutes before the raids started, giving us time to collect our possessions together.

One of my earliest memories was watching the frightened people hurrying down the steps of the shelters, clutching their flasks and sandwiches, which were often filled with little more than dripping. We all carried our gas masks, incase of an emergency. Some of the children’s were brightly coloured and known as Mickey Mouse masks, which they slung around their necks.

When the bombs began to rain down nightly, many decided that the London Undergrounds provided the safest shelters. At first the government were reluctant to allow their use as shelters. But once they realised passengers were buying one penny halfpenny tickets (cheapest available) to gain access — they realised they could not really prevent them!

Evening after evening, families started moving Tubewards, carrying their bedding to tuck their children in for the night. Gradually the platforms filled up and by the time of the 5-6 p.m rush hour alighting passengers had to step between the rows of people who had already “claimed their pitch”! The crowds ate, drank, chatted and laughed trying to keep up their spirits, pretending that nothing untoward was going on in the world above. One reporter said, “It was the most extraordinary mass picnic the world had ever known”!

But the conditions underground were appalling, with no proper sanitary facilities other than the overflowing “bucket variety” for MEN/WOMEN screened only by a curtain! However, as the raids worsened, for some people they had little other choice of shelters.

One night the road next to ours was badly hit and many families lost their entire home or worse still were killed outright. Another time a bomb landed on the Common at the top of our road, leaving a huge crater.

All through the war my father worked as a fireman in the London Fire Service and witnessed many harrowing scenes. It was especially grim when our local Northern Line at Balham Underground Station was bombed. He told me that it was absolute carnage. The bomb made a direct hit — fracturing both gas and water mains — flooding miles of tunnels. Tragically hundreds of people were drowned or buried in the rubble. And that night 680 shelterers lost their lives.

However, the British population gradually became used to the nights of bombing and in the mornings it was back to work as usual. And for the housewives, the daily ordeal of queuing, which was a wartime institution.

One of my enduring memories is lining up with my Mother, in all weathers, alongside shop windows sandbagged against bomb blast, carrying our ration books and old newspapers — because wrapping paper was in short supply. If you saw a queue, you automatically joined it! “What are we queuing for today Mummy?” I once enquired. “Wait until we get to the end of the queue and you will see.” She replied!

But there was one queue of which I needed little persuasion to join. And that was the one, which wound its way around the outside of our local sweet shop called “Fords”!
In pre-war days “Fords” were renowned for its wide range of high -class confectionary — especially chocolate Easter eggs and Christmas novelties. However during the war, when sugar was in short supply, all such luxury trading ceased. Instead, they were sadly reduced to accepting customer’s “Personal Points” — exchangeable only for confectionary and chocolates.

I remember all too well, my Mother handing over these precious “Points” and sometimes parting with the family’s modest sugar rations too - which “Fords” obligingly made into sweets on the premises.
Alas, we children had to wait until February 5th, 1953, before sweets eventually came off the ration!

Then for a while, “Fords” happily flourished once again. But later, I believe, it sadly suffered the fate of so many other little shops — finally closing its doors — and taking with it, the history of rationing, queues and my “sweet memories”.
8) THE SUMMARY OF SUSAN’S STORY — follows her family’s fortunes across the years, beginning with her parent’s first encounter whilst doing their war-time work at an electronics company in Surrey. How, her Father became involved in the development of radio receivers, which were used in bomber planes, notably those specifically fitted for the “Lancasters”, chosen for the famous “Dam Busters” mission in May 1943. And of her Mother’s “Interceptor Work” identifying enemy signals, and repairing and testing the radios that her Father had developed. Sue also writes of how she and a childhood friend survived the food shortages by paying their “last respects” at neighbouring houses where the ”Funeral Teas” were taking place! She concludes with an intriguing tale of how, over half-a-century- later, she traced the unknown benefactor of the food parcels which her family received from New Zealand throughout the war and discovered they had been sent by an unknown Kiwi Grandfather!...
Logging on to check for my emails one Spring morning in 2004, I found a message from an old school friend asking me if I would like to contribute to the collection of our “old” friend’s wartime stories. As it happened, this invitation coincided with another project, with which I had recently become involved. So sensing a familiarity between them, I readily agreed to participate.
Now living and working as a musician on the Isle of Man, we, in the community, are planning in 2005 an important event to mark those memorable years from 1939 — 1945 when thousands of stateless women came from all corners of Europe to live in internment camps amongst us.
It is hoped that the unique stories of these talented women — who included ballerinas, singers, patisseries and an entire order of Nuns — and the amazing lives they went onto create for themselves will be recorded, filmed and archived, before they have faded from living memory.
And so for the moment, I will switch my attention from this very interesting period of the Island’s past, to focus on my own personal history.
In a wholly different setting beginning in the suburbs of South West London during the year of 1939.

SUSAN’S STORY — As a young man my Father Gordon, was a “radio wizard” and first, encountered my Mother Frances, whilst they were both doing their war-work at “Marconi’s”, an electronic company in Hackbridge, Surrey.
Later they married in nearby Beddington Park Church followed by a wartime wedding breakfast in “Beddington Grange”.
Later still, I arrived to complete the scene and my parents called me Susan.
We lived with my paternal Grandmother, Violet Black, in a maisonette with a small garden at 114A Swaby Road, South West London. Our front windows looked across to Garrett Green, which at that time were still open fields. And it was there, during the early post war years, that one of the first comprehensive schools “Garrett Green“, was built.
Swaby Road ran from Earlsfield Station and the local cemetery at one end, to just behind Garrett Green at the other. I came to know it well.
When I first started school in Trinity Road, on Wandsworth Common my Mother and I either trudged there — mostly uphill — or I rode on the small pillion seat of her bicycle. In rain and shine, every morning and back again in the afternoon.

Unlike Grandma Black, who was a Londoner and sadly died in 1946, Grandma Long, my Mother’s Mother, was a country woman, born and bred from the Badminton area of Gloucestershire; and as a child she and her siblings attended the local village school.
I cannot be certain when or how she met my Grandfather, but I suspect it was whilst they were working “in service”, as at sometime in the early years of their marriage, he had worked as a gamekeeper to the Duke of Beaufort and they had lived in one of the pair of lodges at the gates of the ancient estate.
After a while they came to London and in due course they were followed by Grandpa’s five brothers who in turn, each joined the police force in the capital.
And for the main part of his working life, Grandpa Long served in “The Met” — Royal A division — the area around Buckingham Palace and Houses of Parliament.

Throughout the war years my Father became involved in the development of radio receivers, mainly those which were used in bomber planes, and notably those specifically fitted for the “Lancasters”, which flew in the famous ”R.A.F” 617 “Dam Busters” mission.
On May 17th, 1943, led by Wing Commander Guy Gibson, the squadron completed their successful mission to destroy the two huge Mohne and Eder dams, using the new “bouncing bombs” developed by Dr. Barnes Wallis.
However, despite doing this essential radio work and in common with many young men back then, my Father tried twice to join up for active service. But when asked the question, “Where are you presently working”? His reply brought the same response. In no uncertain terms he was told, “To stop wasting the recruiting officer’s time and to return to the important work in which he was currently employed”!
He also trained in heavy rescue and first aid, but fortunately this never had to be put into practice at “Marconi’s”.
Meanwhile, my Mother, who was a talented musician, and her sister Enid, who also had a keen ear, were both employed testing and maintaining the radios that my Father had developed. My Aunt Enid told me that one particular radio which came in for repair was found to have a bullet from a German fighter lodged inside. So it was little wonder that it had given up working!
The two sisters also did “Interceptor Work”. Sitting alongside of one another, in their individual “mesh cages” — with earphones clamped to their heads, and atmospherics crackling away within them — they listened intently to identify those vital enemy signals.
After my Mother’s long shifts had ended, she replaced her earphones for her tin helmet and cycled home, in the blackouts, from Hackbridge to Earlsfield, down what was then locally nicknamed “Doodlebug Alley”! Constantly glancing over her shoulder, she peddled furiously and many a time she had to dive into a ditch to avoid the efforts of the “Luffwaffe, who were busy targeting nearby Clapham Junction!
I well remember being given a brightly coloured set of building bricks which had been created from old tuning knobs, salvaged from the front of radios that were beyond repair. They came in three different sizes and colours - red, yellow and blue — and made perfect building bricks for a small child. Then they delighted me, but I wonder now, about who might have been operating those radios when they were hit? A sobering thought.

During the war and for a long time afterwards, food supplies were extremely short, especially in London, and the oddities of our daily diet were among the most vivid of my early memories. However, one of my childhood friends Angela - who to me then, was “a big girl” - developed a unique way of surviving these shortages.
Living close to the local cemetery, she began to take note of the whereabouts of nearby funerals! Although at that time, it was still customary for the “dear departed” to be laid out in state in the “front room”, this knowledge did not seem to deter the pair of us from presenting ourselves at the homes of our newly bereaved neighbours. Two small mourners, paying their “last respects”, in the hopes that we would be included at their Funeral Teas! On the occasions when we were lucky enough to be invited inside, there, we greedily indulged our passion for egg sandwiches and red jelly!
Looking back now, I am appalled at our misguided initiative, although it did seem to be a very, good idea at the time!

Fortunately, my family did have a more reputable source of eking out our rations. These came in the form of wonderful food parcels, containing such unobtainable goodies as delicious dried fruit, which regularly arrived throughout the war.
They were sent by a mysterious benefactor, one — William Henry Boyce - from New Zealand. Alas, by 1946 all such parcels ceased.
But, the story did not end there…
In 1999, whilst visiting my daughter Sarah and my son-in-law Clive, in their New Zealand home, my sense of curiosity drew me to the idea of tracing the mysterious benefactor, who had so generously supported our family during those dreary years in 1940’s London.
Although some of the details must remain conjecture, it appeared that during the Great War, my Grandmother Violet, had worked as a Nursing Auxiliary at a Convalescent hospital in, I believe, the Carshalton area of Surrey. There, she nursed a soldier from Timaru, South Island in New Zealand. And it was to my amazement, that I discovered the soldier’s name was William Henry Boyce!
He had earlier been injured whilst fighting in Gallipoli. Evidently he must have rallied well, as my Father was the result!
During an era, when reputations mattered, it seems that this liaison was understandably kept a closely guarded secret. For then, the world was not yet ready to accept the state of single motherhood. And many a young woman such as Violet was generally “persuaded” to give away her new born child.
But it seems that MISS. BLACK refused to be convinced. Good for Grandma!
Instead, with commendable courage, and after William had been safely despatched, back home to New Zealand, she decided to set about raising her son alone. And with spirit and will she succeeded — under the guise of a respectable World War One WIDOW!

It was on the last day of my visit, when Sarah and I set out in search of the Auckland cemetery, where we believed my Grandfather was buried.
We seemed to have walked for miles between the endless rows of graves, which unlike the British, vertical memorials here the stones had been horizontally laid —making the names particularly difficult to identify. Then, at last I stumbled upon it! I was filled with a strange kind of excitement as I stooped to read my Grandfather’s inscription.
My daughter and I stood looking at it together. And in the silence between us, my thoughts naturally turned to the past. What I wondered, would have happened to my Grandparents, had they have met under different circumstances?
I should have liked to think that Violet would have married the one love of her life, and I pictured the pair of them living happily together, raising a family in a home of their own. When … at that moment, I was abruptly brought back to the present. As if on cue, the black clouds that had hovered above us suddenly burst! The heavens opened and the rain came down in torrents. Bedraggled, we made a swift exit as we squelched our way across the sodden ground to the cemetery gates.
We were glad to return to the shelter of the bus, glad that we had come and very glad that our search had been successful. Then through the downpour, we were driven away to Wellington Airport, much moved by all we had discovered.

I was eight years old at the outbreak of WW2. My father worked as a driver for a laundry in Merton and was in the Auxiliary Fire Service part time. Mum started some homework from P.B Cow of Mitcham, cutting out rubber grommets which I used to help in the evenings. It wasn’t long before I was evacuated to Eastbourne with my mother and my one year old sister. I cannot remember too much about that event apart from us all living in one room and my father visiting us occasionally from our flat in Streatham, London. Dad turned up on one visit with a huge cod over his shoulder to help out with the rations.

It wasn’t a very happy time in Eastbourne though. I can remember my mother often being in tears at the conditions we were living in, the three of us huddled together in that one tiny room near the sea. This, together with the shortage of food and mum missing dad coming home in the evenings soon made us return to London.

I stayed with my family in London during what is now known as the Battle of Britain, and watched the daily contrails of the dogfights over Croydon. Days then seemed to be always clear, with warm sunshine and blue skies and with the sound of the planes and gunfire overhead and in the far distance. All very exciting to a lad of ten and his gang members.
I remember helping dad to build the Anderson bomb shelter in the garden. A corrugated iron shelter, half buried in the ground and covered with earth. Dad seeded ours with grass and grew flowers on it and fitted a strong wooden door. It had a concrete floor with a hole in one corner so that the condensation could run away. Also an electric light on a long lead was run from the house to the shelter. I nearly electrocuted myself playing with the lamp on one occasion, it was only my mum's quick reaction that saved me. Mattresses and blankets served as our beds over wooden slats. Later on we had an indoor ‘table’ shelter with wire grills around the sides called the Morrison shelter. Our beds were permanently made up and we slept under this shelter during the blitz.

I was evacuated again to a small picturesque village called Bishops Hull in Somerset just outside of Taunton. All the new evacuee arrivals were ushered into the local village hall to be fostered to local families. I was exceedingly lucky to be fostered together with Charlie G from Tooting in London, a friend I had made on the journey from Paddington. We were billeted with the local builder Mr A and his wife who had a wonderful covered side entrance full of ladders and all sorts of interesting things to explore for kids of our age. I will always remember the hand grenade that was used to keep the back door open and the war games we used to play with it - it was not live of course. We had the occasional rumble of German aircraft at night and once found a live incendiary bomb on the front doorstep which soon had the local Wardens arriving to cover it with sandbags. I believe some planes just dropped their bombs anywhere.

Our days in the village with its cobbled pavements and the smell of fresh bread from the local bakery were always new and exciting. There was so much to do, it was all so new to us as we had never been in the countryside before. Climbing the huge oak tree in the field next to the bakery (it’s still there), go fishing down at the river where there always seemed to be a whirlpool that we were so frightened to go near. Running away from the cows in the field and the local farmer giving us rides on old snowball - a huge, to us, white cow. We once sampled a jug of cider that we found buried in a haystack. Although we searched, we never found it again! Many a time Charlie and I were in trouble at night. We shared a bed and were always laughing and making a noise until we were scolded and told to sleep.
The letter writing was somewhat of a chore in those days as we were always told to write home at least one evening a week.
Our school was just around the corner by an alleyway at the rear of the house. An old fashioned hand pump was in the alleyway. A small school hall that, in retrospect, was possibly a disused chapel. I can’t remember much about the schooling, but I can remember helping to whitewash the walls inside. I am sure I never learned too much there. I was also friends with Jack and Jill, brother and sister who lived next door at the local butchers. The butchers shop is also still there.
Those happy days came to an end when Mrs A, our fostermother, broke her ankle while playing football with us in the street. I was then fostered with somebody new and very soon asked to return home as I was sharing a bedroom with one of the elder sons who I didn’t like.

I came home in time for the blitz on London that was pretty frightening, although really exciting to us youngsters who didn’t realise the dangers. My father was now permanently in the London Fire Brigade or maybe it was the National Fire Service, and I seem to remember he was on duty most nights. He told me of walls collapsing around him in the docklands and of going round with an enamel bucket picking up body parts.
My uncle lived in the flat above us and worked on the railway as a shunter at Clapham Junction. He kept his bike in the front garden. I was in the Life Boys (a junior sea cadets) at that time and wore the hat with a saucepan lid underneath as protection! One night we were both at the front door seeing all that was going on, he in his tin helmet and me with my saucepan lid. Suddenly among all the noise, there was a loud clang as a big piece of shrapnel went straight through the spokes of his bike. He had to catch a bus to work the next few days until his bike was repaired.
I will always remember that I was up the top of my road in a friends house during one of the daylight raids. It appeared pretty quiet so I decided to go the several hundred yards to my house. I was halfway there when aircraft were heard, so I started running as bombs were whistling down. I managed to get the key, that was hanging from inside of the letterbox on a piece of string, and opened the door, threw myself on the floor of the passageway as I had been told to do in such circumstances, and the front door fell on top of me with the blast. I was unhurt, but the bombs destroyed several houses in the next street.
After the ‘all clears’ had sounded during the daytimes, we used to go out on our scooters shrapnel hunting. You got to be leader of the gang if you found a shell cap, but that was a rarity. The scooters and barrows we made ourselves out of wood collected from bombed sites. The wheels of the scooters were large ball races with a lump of wood hammered through the centre for an axle. The noise they made going along the road and pavements wouldn’t be allowed today. The pram wheels of the barrow or trolleys were also collected from the bombed sites - a great source for what is nowadays called do-it-yourself. There were often big fights over the collected spoils. The barrows had four wheels, a box to sit in, and were steered with a bit of string tied to the front wheels that were on a swivel.

I was then again evacuated. To South Wales this time. A mining village called Pentrebach near Merthyr. It seemed as if the war was far away and over. Us kids had great fun sliding down the slag-heaps on trays and getting covered in coal dust. I used to help the local milkman -Jones the milk of course - on the weekends putting the cardboard caps on the bottles of milk in the dairy. I think I was given tuppence for doing this. I confess here, that I stole rolls of these caps to share with my friends for a game at school where we flicked them up to a wall. The nearest to the wall kept all the other caps. Needless to say I always had plenty of stock!
On Sundays it was a local ‘hobby’ of the men of the village to go ratting. Either down the disused coalmine or the river. The rats were either shot or put in a ‘tram’ (a small wagon for carrying coal from the mine) and dogs were introduced for, what was called sport in those days. If it wasn’t ratting, then it was going up in the hills with friends to pick blueberries for a pie.
Schooling is not a thing I remember while in Wales, I was having too much fun. I do remember coming home from school and sitting down to a plateful of runner beans for dinner several times a week. Probably the reason that I don’t like them now.

As the blitz appeared to be over, I once more returned home to Streatham. The doodlebug raids started soon after. We watched them from the back garden flying past toward the centre of London. On occasion the engine would stop early and it would dive down and black smoke would appear a mile or so away. We were always ready to make a rush for the shelter when they appeared, sometimes with a spitfire chasing it.
I was sitting on the front wall at a friends house a few streets away one late afternoon when there was an almighty bang followed by a rushing roaring sound, and we all looked at each other wondering what it was. We were all used to the bangs during a raid, but there was no raid on at that time. The warnings were getting fewer. It turned out that it was the V2 rocket for which no warning could be given. It was much more powerful than the V1 doodlebug (or flying bomb). The V2 came from the stratosphere and travelled faster than sound. The roaring noise after the explosion was the sound it made coming through the air, a frightening noise. Although many V1s and V2s fell on London and caused a great deal of death and damage, I feel that I was fortunate to live on the outskirts of the City and in the suburbs.

The war in Europe came to an end soon afterwards with much celebration and street parties. Lots of food was found for these in spite of the rationing that went on for several years afterwards. Flags and bunting was brought out, even pianos were on the streets with lots of music and dancing. Soon afterwards, small prefabricated houses began to appear on what we called the bomb-dumps. We used to listen to the interesting stories the nightwatchman could tell of his war, while we were sitting around the fire that he lit in the ‘prefabs’.

After the Easter holiday in 1938 I began my second year at Ensham Central School in Tooting in South London. The need for a bicycle to get to the school from Streatham had given me the opportunity to widen my little world. One of my expeditions the year before had been to find out where the great biplanes of Imperial Airways landed. So I found Croydon Aerodrome, there in front of me was a square brick building that was the terminal and control tower all in one. On top of the tower was a radio mast, which made it look really modern and up to date. I rode my bike up to the side of the building where there was an iron fire escape up to the flat roof, so I climbed up, there being no one about to say no. Once on the roof I could see the whole grass field. The huge biplanes Horatius and Scylla were parked right up to the building and I could see the people working in the control tower. I returned many times. So that when at the end of September I sat by the wireless in our kitchen, listening to the Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain speaking on his return from talks with Hitler, I felt part of the event as he was standing just below my roof top position. His words are now history, ‘I believe it is peace in our time’ he said waving a piece of paper. Foolish people have ever since said that he was guilty of appeasing the Dictator, but it was quite clear, even to a thirteen year old schoolboy like me that he had bought us much needed time to prepare our forces. I explained to my Mother just what the scene was like after the broadcast, forgetting that my visits to the aerodrome had been part of my private life. She was not pleased, how dare I go to such a dangerous place. The PM’s message was forgotten.
I began my third year at Ensham after Easter in 1939, during the first term I was elected by my classmates to be their representative in the school elocution competition, they thought that I spoke BBC very well! Preparations for a war went on quietly all around us. At my school our parents were summoned to an ‘important’ meeting about evacuation in the event of war and were asked to say if they agreed that their child should go. My father said no. On his return home he gave no reason for the decision, but I was very grateful. A few weeks later there was a full scale dress rehearsal of the future evacuees. They had to bring all of the things that they would take with them including any smaller brothers and sisters. The inspection took hours with the school playgrounds covered with six hundred excited pupils. We no-goes looked on in amusement.
People busied themselves learning Civil Defence, First Aid, gas masks were distributed, future air raid wardens going from house to house fitting the strange devices. Another group of people went from door to door registering the occupants and issuing identity cards, my card was number AXGB/122/3.
At the end of the term we broke up for the summer holidays. I put away my green school blazer with its gold Viking ship badge and went off for the last golden summer of my childhood.
It was a blazing hot summer and I enjoyed making an outdoor model railway track in the garden of a friend. Near the end of August I was invited to stay with some of my cousins at the seaside bungalow that an Aunt and Uncle had taken for the last month of the summer holidays. I think that the bungalow was in Rustington, anyway it was right on the South sea coast in a lovely little sleepy town. There was a nice sandy beach, a stretch of grass, then a road and on the other side their bungalow. Off I went on the Southern Electric train and the next few days on the beach in the sun were idyllic, time stood still, we had no wireless, no newspapers, but the suddenly a week had passed and it was Friday and my Uncle would be arriving for the weekend. We went over to the beach as usual in the morning, it was to be the last ‘usual’ that we were to experience for many years.
Time for lunch said my cousin Joyce and we gathered up our things and walked back to the road. When we got there we just stood and stared. Parked all along the road were red London buses and they were full of children. We stared at them and they stared at us. We’re being evacuated they shouted. But, we said, evacuation was only supposed to happen if there was a war. There’s going to be a war they shouted back. We ran back to the bungalow to give the news to my Aunt, but of course she knew and had telephoned my Uncle, they had decided that I was to go home. So next morning, Saturday 2nd September 1939, I was put on the train back to Streatham. It was a nice green liveried train of three carriages which stopped at every station before reaching Victoria in London. I got off at Streatham Common station, 10 minutes walk from home. There were only a few people on the train and I was the only passenger that got off. I walked out of the station, it was quite eerie there were no children and the road was strangely quiet. I walked along carrying my small suitcase and didn’t see anyone. I went through the little tunnel under the railway and along the wide path next to the allotments where there would normally have been a dozen children playing, still no one. A few more solitary minutes and I was home to find my Mother rushing about in a state of excitement, this always set the dog rushing about. It may have been quiet outside but it wasn’t at home.
There had been a great deal of advice for householders from the government about air raid precautions or ARP as it soon became commonly known. One suggestion was to apply adhesive paper tape diagonally across all the panes of glass in the windows of your house. This was the basic task of the day in our house and in that of our neighbours. Everyone kept running out of the sticky paper and I was kept busy going up to the shop at the top of the road to keep them supplied. The idea behind taping the glass was to try to prevent pieces of broken glass flying about if a bomb should explode nearby. We also had advice on how to protect ourselves if there should be a poison gas attack. The men of our little group of houses were busy making blanket covered frames to fit the kitchen windows. The idea being that if gas was dropped, someone ran out and drenched the blanket with water, thus keeping the gas out! Looking back I wonder if some of the advice sent out was more to keep people occupied than useful.
Although there was plenty of information available from the events of the Spanish Civil War and the Italian invasion of Ethiopia it was either ignored or wrongly applied. All the advice given out was based on the havoc wrought by short range dive bombers attacking small towns in Spain from nearby bases. London all 400 square miles of it and a long way from Germany was thankfully rather different. But everyone was happily employed all day and we all went to bed exhausted.

Sunday the 3rd of September was a brilliant day, Mr.Yarnold our next door neighbour, who was a warden of my church, told me that as so many people had gone away and that all of the choir except me had been evacuated, our church had closed and I should now go to the Parish Church, but I didn't on that day as we all just stood around the wireless waiting for news. There had been an announcement by the BBC earlier that the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain would speak to the Nation at noon. When after what seemed like an age, we heard his voice, it was to say that Britain had delivered an ultimatum to Germany at 9am that morning, they were to cease the invasion of Poland by ll.00am, or a state of war would exist between us. His thin quavering voice went on "I have to tell you that no such undertaking has been received and that accordingly a state of war now exists between us." Just a year before I had stood in the same place before our wireless and heard him say on arriving back at Croydon Airport from his visit to Hitler, "I believe this is peace in our time." I believed then, and still do that he had worked so that we had the means to defend ourselves. Now here he was declaring war on Germany on behalf of a nation we could not possibly defend. With the knowledge of time it is interesting to note, that Poland was not restored to its pre-invasion boundaries at the end of the war. So the initial object of the hostilities was never achieved.
Within minutes of Chamberlain's words the air raid warning sirens started their stomach churning undulating wail, both our neighbouring families were in our kitchen, the men rushed about getting the antigas blanket screen up over the window and my mother rushed about all over the place blindly, with the other ladies trying to calm her down. Our dog Scamp, ran all over the place bumping into everyone and everything, thankfully the all clear sounded after a little while. We were told later it was a false alert. I walked up the road after all this for some peace and quiet and to get more tape, halfway along the way I stopped abruptly, suppose we loose, no we can not possibly loose I assured myself. I'm glad that I did not know just how close we were to come to loosing and how soon. Monday brought more turmoil, my Mother declared that so much upset had been caused by the dog the day before, that he had to be `put down'. It never occurred to her that it was she who stirred him up and she was adamant. So my poor Father had to take the dog off to the vets. I should write that I am sorry to say that I caused quite a scene. But I'm still not. In the way that young boys', do I loved my dog, I had seen him born, helping his mother when she was uncertain how to break the bag that he was in, we played for hours together once he was grown. I just stayed in my room rejecting all blandishments, doing nothing for several days, until I realised that I could not bring him back, but I made up my mind that `when I grew up' I would not use a pet as a possession.
Once we were at war a transformation took place in daily life. Everyone you met had a brown box hanging from a shoulder on a piece of cord. This held their gas mask. Such was the danger of a poison gas attack, we were told, we were never to be without our gas masks, as such an event, we were solemnly instructed, could happen at any time. The tops of pillar boxes had been coated with a greeny paint, which, so we were told, would turn red if there was poison gas about. Small comfort if you did not live near a post box and as we were used to seeing red tops on pillar boxes not likely to be noticed anyway. Soon the shops were filled with covers of all types and prices to embellish your gas mask box. Later as the boxes and their covers fell apart more sturdy containers were on sale. I acquired a metal cylinder, which was much more practical.
The mask itself was an unpleasant thing, a small metal cylinder that contained the material alleged to filter out the poison gas, to which was attached a thin sheet rubber face mask, within which was a celluloid sheet vision panel. The contraption was held onto your head by a rubber harness. As you breathed in air came through the filter but, when you breathed out it had to be with sufficient puff so as to move the rubber sheet next to your cheeks, away from your face. There was no other air exit. There were also Mickey Mouse gas masks for small children, all enveloping bags with a small air pump, to be worked by their mothers, for babies, ARP Wardens had a stronger version in a canvas sack and soldiers had a totally different arrangement that allegedly allowed running and jumping about. The gas mask industry really excelled itself, quite a feat really when no one was going to use the repulsive things
Cars at first took on a strange appearance, being required to have their front mudguards painted white and have light deflectors on their headlamp's and the reflector's within them painted black, which meant that they were useless. This did not matter because soon there was no petrol to be had. The papers carried long articles on how to lay up your car for the duration of the war. Little did owners know that it was to be at least Seven years before they could again use their cars. Traffic lights had masks that showed a semicircle of light during the day, by nightfall the beat policeman had flipped over the other part of the mask so that during darkness only a small cross of light showed. Very effective, I was amazed how brilliantly they shined out into the overall consuming blackness. A bit pointless really there wasn't any traffic.
Odd patches of ground all over London, almost overnight, became home to groups of earnest young ladies in WAAF uniforms. They had a Nissen hut to live in, beside which stood a trailer with about Thirty long gas cylinders with an octopus of tubes leading off to the object of their care, a barrage balloon. It sat within a circle of mooring points next to a firmly secured winch. The balloon itself was a smaller but plump version of the ill-fated airships of previous years. Made out of a silver coloured fabric it had built in fins at one end to keep it pointed into the wind. As they rode in place in the sky the wind blew in the rounded nose of the balloon giving the appearance of it having a face. There were hundreds of them over the whole built up area of the Capital and at an unheard command they all rose into the air, up and up until they looked like characterised children’s’ playthings. The object, of course, was to raise a barrier of wires and so force hostile aircraft to fly higher than they wanted to.
More secluded pieces of ground became home to a few anti-aircraft guns or a searchlight whose operators became very skilled at illuminating a marauding bomber. Later I often sneaked up into a freezing bedroom to view the night sky to see if the searchlights had found an aircraft. Their crews were in a very dangerous situation. They were the only people on the ground whose position was exactly defined to the bomb aimers. We were all keyed up for the promised air raids. Each night when I went to bed as I took off my clothes I laid them out carefully so that when the sirens howled I could dress quickly in the dark. I could not put the light on as we had no blackout screens or curtains in the bedrooms, my Mother declared that we could not afford them. We waited and waited but no air raids and everyone slowly fell back to their old routines. The ever vigilant ARP Wardens kept up their patrols of he streets and instead of the street traders cries there was a new one to be heard and obeyed `Put that light out'. The darkness was unbelievable, instead of a glowing sky over London there was just the moon. On moonless nights the blackness seemed to possess you. We soon learned the techniques that blind people use to protect us as we moved about.
Our cosy wireless programmes changed radically. There were no more broadcasts from France or Luxembourg and the BBC woke up from its slumber, no more National and Regional, but Home and Forces. Broadcasting now started at six in the morning and went on to eleven in the evening. Announcers and news readers were no longer anonymous, but named themselves at the start of each pronouncement. This, we were told, was so that the crafty Germans could be recognised if they broadcast imitation BBC programmes and as a great innovation, regional accents began to be heard coming from our loudspeakers.
The summer spread from September into October, I had no school to go to and no friends to play with. Although, fed up with my moaning my Mother had agreed that I could accept an offer from the greengrocers of a dog, a young black and tan terrier named Dusty. I busied myself model making and reading and in sign of a future life, I measured our house and made drawings of it. The middle of October was my fourteenth birthday and I became one of the last generation to be subjected to a strange ritual. Most schoolboys of my day wore a school blazer on top of a grey shirt, grey flannel short trousers, long wrinkled down grey socks and scrubby black shoes. Oh yes and a school tie, a stripy thing of basic colours. But, on your fourteenth birthday and thereafter you wore long grey flannel trousers.
During the first week of October I was taken by my Father to Gamages, a shop in High Holborn that seemed to sell everything. We went upstairs to the men's department, it was completely panelled in mahogany and the atmosphere was like being in church. I was put into and out of several pairs of trousers while my father and the tailor discussed the problem of fitting me, while allowing for my future growth, in sepulchral tones. At last they were satisfied and we carried off the carefully wrapped box containing the important garment. Once home, I had to go through the fitting process again for my Mothers benefit. This all successfully achieved I thought that was it. Not at all, you take those trousers off and hang them up, there are still 10 days before your birthday, on with the shorts! My 14th birthday came and went, I can't remember it at all, so I suppose the change into long trousers came as an anti-climax.