High Explosive Bomb at Plashet Grove

A Canning Town Evacuee — Part 1

My name is Reg Yates. I lived in London at Canning Town, London E.16 and Plaistow E.13 during WW2, going to Beckton Road Junior and Rosetta Road Schools except for my periods as an evacuee to Bath during September to Christmas 1939,then Cropredy May 1940 - July 1942.

I then worked at A. Bedwells, Barking Road delivering groceries for the rest of the war.

I'm still alive and kicking! Anyone remember me?

A Community Coming Together

War clouds came and we had to dig a big hole in each garden at least three and a half feet deep, at least six feet wide and roughly eight feet long depending on the size of the family using it, an awesome task. All the neighbours pooled resources and after about two months hard work most houses had a hole and had the Anderson Shelter erected to the supplied instructions. We had to make sure the rear exit worked properly. Two-tier bunk beds 2 x 6 feet one side and one other bunk bed and two chairs were there along with a bucket for the toilet and a bucket of water to drink. We never knew how long we would have to stay in there. During The Blitz we had to stay all night.

The shelters proved to be a godsend as they survived everything except a direct hit. They survived near misses and houses falling on top of them. People came out shaken but alive. They were worth their weight in gold.

There was another shelter built to fix over the kitchen table, steel top and legs for people who could get underneath in an emergency. Safe from falling masonry, it was called a Morrison Shelter after Lord Morrison a Labour Lord at the time.

I started smoking about this time. I could buy five woodbines and a box of matches for two pence, boys will be boys. I also remember going on an errand for my Dad, I had to take a letter to a house in Wanlip Road, Plaistow and she had tiles on the walk up from the gate to front door. She went ballistic because I dared to skate up to her front door. She made me take them off whilst she wrote a note to my Dad saying what a cheeky so and so I was for skating up to her door and that if I came again I would have to walk to teach me a lesson.

There were plenty of rumours about kids having to get evacuated very soon and on 1st September 1939 we were transported to Paddington Station and put on a train to the country.

We all had to say goodbye to our parents at school after they tied a label around our necks with name, date of birth, religion and which school we were from. So just after my eleventh birthday I said goodbye to Beckton Road School for the first time and landed up in the old city of Bath in Somerset.

Evacuated For The First Time

It was only two weeks after my eleventh birthday when we arrived at Bath Junction signal box, and someone said “just the thing for you kids from the smoke, a bloody great bath.” I didn’t realise what he meant until years later!

I was sent to a place called Walcott in Bath, and I was sent to a Mr & Mrs Pierce who to my eyes, were quite old looking. However, they were very nice people and looked after me very well.

They had a middle-aged navvy with whom I shared a bedroom, and our own beds I’m glad to say. I remember him getting dressed for work, hobnail boots, corduroy trousers and he tied about nine inches of car tyres around his kneecaps. He had a walrus moustache and looked a fearsome bloke to look at, but was a gentle chap really.

My two sisters were evacuated to a house just around the corner up a steep hill. Doris was eight years old and Joyce was thirteen and a half. They stayed with nice people who had two girls of their own of about eight to ten years of age. We all went to the local school along with about forty other kids from London.

We all had to sing a hymn ‘For those in peril on the sea.’ Just before Christmas we lost an aircraft carrier, HMS Glorious, with great loss of life and most of the sailors came from the West Country. The local rag had pages and pages of photos of those lost on the carrier.

Sometime in November 1939 I was playing a game called catch and kiss with some of the locals. This time they went along the road at the top of the hill. On one corner was a grocers shop, which had a wall with big white letters, “we sell Hovis bread”. What I didn’t know at that moment was that the police had very recently made the shopkeeper black it out as it could be seen from an aeroplane.

Running at full pelt, I ran straight into it thinking it was the turning. I was in hospital for three weeks. When I started school again, I could not see the teachers’ writing on the board.

At the end of December our Mum came to Bath to see us, and after saying goodbye to my sisters and all the other kids, she took me back to London so I could have treatment for my eyes. I had damaged my optic nerve and have worn glasses ever since.

Joyce came home in February 1940 when she was fourteen, but Doris stayed there until just before the end of the war in 1945.

Home Again

Christmas and New Year came and went, 1940 began and the war was getting worse. I think rationing was introduced about now and some foods were already becoming scarce. Cigarette cards disappeared from packets to save paper and you couldn’t buy pickles loose in a basket.

A couple of weeks went by and the time came to go back to school. Nothing much changed as most children who got evacuated the previous September were still away, but a few more seemed to come back every weekend.

The Beckton Road School was taken over by The National Fire Service, a first aid post and umpteen other things so they found the kids another school called Rosetta Road (off Freemasons Road) that was built of wood and all on one level after the First World War when all the servicemen came home.

Council workmen had dug some slit trenches just in case of an air raid but they looked useless to me, because if it rained it would be like running into a mud bath.

There was some talk about kids having to leave London again and come May it proved to be true and about seventy of us from this school were sent to Banbury in Oxfordshire.

Later in 1942 Mum and Dad moved to Wigston Road that was the next turning. Most people had moved because of the bombing.

I was a child during the second world war and we lived at Plaistow in East London, the house we occupied in Marcus Street was bombed during an air raid and after a brief period in Berkshire we evacuated to Canvey Island in Essex. The reasons for this were that we already had family there and because my father was in a reserved occupation as a ship repairer it was more convenient for the train journey to either the London Docks or Tilbury. He had his own stories of aerial machine gun strafing and the differences in what was available to the crews of the ships he worked on. My own first memories of him at that time were how important he must have been keeping a rifle in his wardrobe especially as my secretive attempts to lift it failed every time. Its weight was far beyond the capabilities of my war ration nourished muscles. His importance in my mind became even more enhanced the night a homeguard colleague almost kicked our door down in his frantic effort to raise my father because it was thought that an invasion fleet had been seen in the Thames Estuary. It turned out to be a false alarm but like the heroes in the comic books he brought me from the American ships he worked on, he was off to save us all.
Canvey Island was not the best choice for an evacuation location because it was under the flight path of the German bombers attacking London during the air raids. In the back room of our bungalow in The Driveway my mother used to put me into a shelter made from thick sheet steel and close down an iron grill as soon as the air raid warning sounded. Soon after this the heavy drone of the approaching bombers would be heard and then the Pom-Pom sounds as the artillery battery opened up then, distant thuds as the bombers ejected their deadly bombs over London and the docks. My mother would try to re-assure me by saying that it was only polar bears outside looking for food and that I should imagine I was in an igloo and settle down to go to sleep. Not long after it seemed the bombers would return but they had a different sound because they had been seperated from their formation and a new sound appeared, a rat-a-tat-tat, probably the noise of fighter machine gun fire.
Canvey Island during the war was very much a village community. You could roam the fields because they were not surrounded with barbed wire as they are today. The main junction of this island village was at the Haystack public house and on the other side of the road was a large notice board claiming that the Island would one day have its own hospital, if you turned right at this junction it would eventually lead to the 'sea' front and the Monico Hotel, this was an Art Deco style building which later became the honey pot for local American servicemen and young women from further afield. They also brought with them a constant request from local children, "Got any gum chum" and the more tasteful pleasure of the ice cream 'Knickerboker Glory".
The Cinema was also near to the Haystack and it was here that most of the news was exchanged. During the intermission china cups and saucers were brought in and and tinkling sounds filled the cinema as tea was poured once the cinema-goers had looked around and then with a thumping of raised seats moved places to be nearest to a friend or someone who might know what was happening. It was here that I first learned that the war was over from the babble of excited conversations. My mother also used to take me to the cinema in Southend via a stop over at the cockle sheds at Leigh-on-Sea. At sixpence a plate for cockles and with the damp smell of boiled shells coming from the cooking at the back of each shed it was one of those cockney baptisms. The film showing at the cinema was Bambi and at a crucial moment of suspense a notice flashed on to the screen for us to leave and go to the shelter because an air raid was in progress. Even now, when I watch that film with my grandchildren, that moment rushes back into my memory.
I do not remember if it was my fifth birthday or my first day at infants' school. It is a remembering which although I can see in every detail is lost in the rambling chronology of rememberings. I was excited and left the bungalow with my mother holding my hand. The sight that greeted me was wonderful to my childs eyes.
From every rainwater gutter, rooftop and telegraph wire hung thousands of strips of silver foil, they moved with the breeze and glistened brightly in the morning sun. I looked up at my mother excitedly but she just looked straight ahead with a sense of fear showing on her youthful face. I learned much later that these strips of foil had been dropped by the enemy bombers to confuse the Radar during their night time attack. There were other times when my mother's sense of fear came through to me, another time we were walking together when we heard a flapping noise directly above us, like sheets being shaken in the wind. We looked up to see white parachutes opening directly above us we rushed home to seek security whilst other people were putting on the kettles preparing a cup of tea for the crew bailing out of their RAF earoplane. At another time I was in the garden and heard a violent flapping sound and over the top of our bungalow came a huge American bomber seemingly not much above the chimney stack. It was orange and black and large parts of its torn fuselage crashed in the wind against other parts of the bodywork, it was being flown by the American pilot without power to avoid the areas of housing and heading towards the sea. He was too low to bail out but such acts of sacrifice are commonplace in war and mostly go un-recorded.
As a schoolboy, with new found friends, Canvey became a countryside to be explored. An island drained by Dutch engineers and with a protective sea wall like a Mediaeval fortress it was unlike any other English landscape. At the top end of The Driveway was a small wooded copse with a damp soil inhabited by lizards and newts that formed an important part of our sometimes sadistic boyhood games. We could roam the fields and play soldiers or cowboys on the haystacks or wander the marshes where an oil refinery now stands.
The initiation was a 'booter', getting both socks and shoes soaked in the marshland rivulets and then walking home with squeeks and squelches amongst the sounds of mischievous laughter.
On Sundays, a girl, our older 'minder', took a handful of her young charges along the sea wall and down to The Point of the island. We passed by upturned clinker built boat hulls blackened by tar and used as houses until we reached a flat bottomed punt shaped boat. Painted a gleaming white with a large house like structure on its deck it was surrounded by a pretty baluster and bobbed in the tidal flow of the creek, it was the Sunday School. The motley congregation sang our little hearts out, best suits, white dresses and shoes covered in marshland mud. I was,without knowing it, living in the remnants of a Dickensian landscape.
The war continued with its everyday experiences, one morning I came out of the front door and as I closed it the ground and house shook violently in the shockwave from a terrifying explosion. I looked out of the porch towards a huge column of jet black smoke rising rapidly into the sky. I shouted and screamed with fear as I banged my tiny fists against the door with frenzy in the attempt to seek the safety of my mothers arms.
It had been a 'Doodlebug'.
I saw others much closer after that, large orange coloured rockets belching a loud gutteral roar from the jet of flame that propelled it. Whilst it made this sound you knew that it was passing, when it suddenly went silent you dropped to the ground and waited. Apparently our fighter pilots at times tried to tip the wings of a doodlebug with their own aircraft wings in an attempt to deflect its course, sometimes with terrible consequences. I overheard, " She was cooking at the time when the doodlebug came down and the saucepan handle went through her neck." The image of this was distorted, nightmare fashion, in my childs' mind.
School had its own excitements, one morning a boy got his leg trapped between the classroom wall and a large heating pipe. At the same moment his shouts were echoed by the wailing of the air raid siren. The children remained silent and bewildered as they watched teachers, in confusion and panic, trying both to release the boy and shepherd the rest of us to the playground air raid shelter.
Restricted rations and the lack of nutritious food left some of us in poor health but almost as a form of compensation there was a list of things that could be done even when there was no medical need.
The removal of appendix or tonsils or ear nose and throat operations were a matter of course. I remember my mum and a Matron standing at the foot of my bed in hospital, the matron asking, "whilst we have him in here would you like us to remove his appendix?"
My own 'ear,nose and throat', was done at a hospital on the mainland, I think it was at Hornchurch. As I came round from the anaesthetic there was an almighty explosion, the french window doors at the side of my ward bed blew open with tremendous force as the curtains rose horizontally like flags and crashing glass spewed its way across the floor. Nurses rushed in to comfort us and we went back to sleep. A boy of my age had been in the bed next to mine and when I awoke in the morning he was gone, his bedsheets had been pulled back and they lay open soaked red with blood.
Some winter mornings I would be taken to Lea Beck school nourished by a large crust of fresh warm bread and a small red carton of Edwards Granulated Soups. I loved crunching my way through those ox-tail granules and it is interesting how wartime tastes and smells can be just as easily rembered as the happenings.
Apart from the jubilation at its ending my final sounds of war were on the day my mother and an aunt took me near to my fathers place of work on the Thames. We walked along a pavement close to the river along which stood a long row of soldiers, some were smoking cigarettes, some were silent, others talked quietly but some were crying. Tears streaming down their faces these soldiers were sobbing loudly. Lowering their heads my mother and aunt walked swiftly past to avoid giving embarassment whilst I, in childhood innocence, just stared in disbelief. I thought about it for days afterwards but my childish reasoning could not understand why a soldier would cry.
Just ten or so years after the war I understood because my own National Service taught me that soldiers are just men in uniform.
My own experiences were at times harrowing. A soldier more experienced than I saved us both by his perceptive observation during a period of terrorism. But, I think that two other soldiers died in our place.
My own torment for a promise that I made to a group of young soldiers only to break it just hours later. The sound of their laughter haunts me but I am glad to be haunted by those spirits because all that their mothers have to remember is the sound of their own tears.
I am saddened that the history of National Service will be extracted by the academics from the dusty official written records of fact, not from the voices of experience.
Its chronicles will be the bawdy frivolous novels that torment fact by their fiction.
Young men, teenaged young men, died during National Service, will fiction be their only epitaph?
ENDS A Child's Sounds of war

As told by Donald Wharf

The air-raid siren - as chilling as ever - wailed as the daylight was fading. Having had no serious air-raid for ages, I thought that, perhaps, it was 'nothing' but then came the very familiar 'booms', and so we retired to the shelter. Hitler had, obviously, not given up and, much as I'm sure we all thought it, the excitement had not simply passed us by - the war had come back to East Ham. Next, I detected a coarse, raucous sound that was closing surprisingly fast. 'One of their aircraft in trouble', I thought but, just as it seemed to have passed, the engine cut out - and then it happened: the explosion was not far away. Almost at once I could hear it again, that same unforgettable sound which stopped, like the first time, very abruptly - and so, yet another explosion. This didn't end: it continued to happen amidst some formidable gunfire - something that finally caused me to say, "The bombers, they're shooting them down!" Slowly, my father turned round to one side: he was laying full length on a bunk-bed. "If that's the case then they've got some new gunners", he said - or something like that. When, in the end, after several hours we emerged from our Anderson shelter, all the old smells of the 'blitz' were there - then I realised what this could all mean..... Saturday: would I be able to go? The Odeon: was it still there? Then, as if nothing else mattered at all, I started to question my mother which brought a deservedly curt response - "It'll have to be cancelled", she said.

Cancelled it was, but there wasn't a choice as the bombing looked set to continue. After that memorably noisy night, we learned that we hadn't heard aircraft but, what was referred to as, unmanned missiles, technically known as V1s. These were propelled by a strange type of jet engine, which, when it finally cut out, meant that the missile then dived down to earth with its payload - a ton of explosive. More of them came down the following day which my mother said looked rather ominous.

As it turned out, all her fears were proved right when in no more than four or five days, life was resembling the earlier 'blitz'..... but at that point the guns disappeared! This was because they had moved further south to positions in Sussex and Kent, where hitting and shooting the missiles down wouldn't defeat its own purpose. 'Missiles', in fact, was a rarely used word which, very soon after that Thursday, was replaced by 'flying bombs', 'buzz bombs' or 'doodle-bugs' - words that, to us, had some meaning.

One almost instant change that took place, after the guns had moved on, was our air-raid routine during daylight hours: we no longer stayed in the shelter. Shrapnel was, obviously, not coming down so there wasn't a danger from that, and as for the strange-looking flying bombs - they did, in fact, give us some warning. Firstly, their noise told us when they were coming, then, due to them flying so low, we were able to watch their line of approach - but suddenly all would fall silent: that was the point when we just had to guess where the bombs were most likely to land. Sometimes we did have to dive down the shelter but, mostly, we stayed in the garden.

Naturally, after a period of time, it all became very routine with most people choosing to stay indoors during, what we all called, an 'alert'. Usually, however, a look-out was used who would shout in the case of real danger - this, out of school hours, was me for my house and Roy for his house, next door. Actually, the pair of us worked as a team, up on the roof of our shed which hadn't been used as a look-out post since the days of the Battle of Britain.

******

During the course of July, and then August, parts of East Ham really suffered. We, on the other hand, saw some near misses that still remain etched in my brain but, generally, our stretch of Central Park Road only sustained minor damage. One such 'near miss' came at lunch-time, one day, while I wandered outside in the garden, waiting for something like dried egg and mash that my mother was quietly preparing. Having just come home from school, very hungry, I wasn't a look-out that day! Also, I'd realised, with total surprise, that my father was home for lunch too, so feeling, perhaps, just a little intrigued, I was thinking of asking him 'why?'. This never happened as thoughts such as that were suddenly blown from my mind.

Coming in fast was a flying bomb that I'd, obviously, not been aware of, and flying low, I remember thinking, due to the tone of its engine. Almost at once it careered into view, as I searched for it over the rooftops, blasting its way in a straight line towards me - that was the point when I shouted.....partly, perhaps, to release the tension but also to forewarn my parents. Then, when its engine cut out, right above me, I physically cringed, but I stayed there, knowing that, usually, they dived at an angle but rarely at ninety degrees. This one was different: it flipped itself over then dropped in a vertical dive! Stricken with fear, I just froze like a statue but, after a nasty few moments, two pairs of hands were pushing and pulling me - then, I was down in the shelter, crouching beneath both my mother and father waiting, I thought, for oblivion. Seconds ticked by: perhaps four, perhaps five - "Where is it?", I yelled, "What's happening?" Next came the dull, rather horrible thud..... it was close but at least we'd survived.

As luck would have it - that is for us - the bomb had pulled out of its dive and landed just north of the Barking Road, a three minute walk from our house. This wasn't lucky for West Ham United: the bomb had come down on their ground!

One other quite harrowing image of war from the 'doodle-bug' days of that summer, came on an otherwise quiet Sunday morning while lots of us just sat around. Not having eaten my breakfast by then, I have to admit, I was one. First came a few very distant explosions but then, when we thought they were finished, someone outside shouted, "One's coming over!"..... it missed us but not by a lot. Naturally, everyone rushed to their windows or stood in their tiny front gardens to see where the bomb had eventually come down, but it wasn't that obvious at first. Next, I remember, I noticed that smoke was starting to rise in the sky from somewhere - again - near the Barking Road, though I couldn't be sure from our doorstep. Nobody else actually made a suggestion but some said they thought it was nearer. Half an hour later, the sky was still quiet so, with partial parental approval, I ran to where everything seemed to be happening which was where I'd thought it would be.

More than a few of the local people were standing in groups in the road, helpless of course, and looking dazed but most of them would have been neighbours. Then there were firemen and rescue workers, scrambling about in the rubble, heaving great lumps of it out of their way in a desperate search for survivors. What had been, once, just a quiet little street was a scene of appalling destruction. One house - the house at the end of the terrace - had simply been razed to the ground with only some pieces of outside wall still, temporarily, standing upright. As for the next house, the one next door that was still technically standing, though most of its roof had been blown away and two or three walls had come down. Thankfully, further along down the terrace, the damage grew steadily less.

Suddenly, there was a buzz of excitement as someone was found in the debris then carried, precariously, down to the road and into the back of an ambulance. That seemed, at least, like a glimmer of hope but almost at once there was more - a rescue worker appeared through the dust, stumbling, but carrying a child. As I looked harder it looked like a boy but wrapped in an A.R.P. blanket. Naturally, then, we all tried to close in but the A.R.P. wouldn't let us as more of the victims were being brought out in a street getting ever more crowded. Possibly, I'd been reminded of Ginger as, right at the height of this drama, I found myself feeling unpleasantly hot - then I wanted to leave, very quickly.

On the way home, I decided to stop and to sit on the kerb by the roadside. All that I wanted to do, in fact, was to settle myself and cool down, which seemed to me better than getting home flustered and having my mother ask questions. This, it turned out, was doomed from the start when a voice near me called, "You alright?" then I found myself trying to explain that I was to a deaf and persistent old man, who told me that he would accompany me home - so I just had to get up and run. When, minutes later, I walked through our door, I had as it happened, recovered.

After the huge, airy rooms of 'The Manse' (Port Sunlight, where Donald had been evacuated in August 1944) my house seemed even more tiny. As for the garden - I'd almost forgotten the amount take up by the shelter, covered, that Autumn, in long stalky grass and the seed pods of dozens of marigolds. Little had changed though - at least, near to us - except for the wail of the siren. That had, apparently, been very quiet since the 'doodle-bug' era had ended. What had replaced them, the V2 rockets, were able to fly undetected, making the usual defences useless as well as the old wailing siren.

My first experience of this latest weapon came, not on the day I returned, but during the course of the following morning while I was at home with my mother - playing outside in the garden, in fact, as all of my friends were at school. Suddenly, there was a terrible 'bang' which caused me to jump and turn round, just as my mother appeared in the kitchen; "Sounds like a rocket", she called. Then, looking roughly southwest from our house, I saw what was obviously smoke, billowing up and forming a cloud in the area beyond Boundary Road. Nothing but silence reigned, just for a while, but that was soon broken by bells: fire-engine bells and then ambulance bells - the 'blitz' and V1s yet again!..... What was so different, of course, to all that, was the absence of some sort of warning.

This is on behalf of my father as he does not have Internet access.

Some Experience of the London Blitz, 1940

My name is John Davey. I was born on December 27th 1924 in South Moltom Road, Custom House, West Ham, and a couple of miles from the Royal Docks. In September 1940, on the Friday evening of the weekend the docks were first blitzed, I was sitting with my friend in his house. At about 7 p.m. there was a series of explosions and the shattering of glass. We ran into the road and saw at the end a flame that shot into the sky, seeming to light up the whole area. My friend and I and lots of others ran towards the fire.

On the way we passed our old neighbour calmly sweeping the broken glass from the pavement as though this was an everyday thing. We reached the end of the road and saw that the first house or two were demolished and several others damaged. It was then I noticed something lying on the pavement, covered up. I lifted the cover and saw my first ever dead person, an occupant of one of the demolished houses.

My father, who had worked as a stevedore in the docks until he suffered a head injury, played an active part in the rescue operations. It appeared that a couple of bombs had been dropped, the first hitting a gas main in the road behind the house facing the top of our road, the second hitting the houses. The plane was visible circling above the fire; the bombs had missed a nearby factory by about 50 feet.

Another friend, Jackie McCall, normally came home from work at about the time the bombs dropped. He was not seen after that day. His body was never found. A few months later workmen were repairing the roofs and a body was discovered on top of one of the gables. The blast had carried it there from the pavement below and it was assumed to be Jackie.

On the night of November 12th 1940 I was standing in our porch behind my dad and an old neighbour called Mr. Cicanowitz (Dutch and known as “Mister” because we could not pronounce his name) and his dog. It was a still night. Suddenly we heard the drone of a plane that dropped several flares, like a gigantic firework display. I asked my dad whether we should go to an Anderson shelter at another house down the road (our shelter was only brick built). He said, “Yes, we’ll go in a minute”.

The next thing I knew everything went grey and I was falling sideways. Eventually I settled on my side, trapped by the rubble of our demolished house. I was screaming abuse. My dad’s voice from somewhere near said “don’t worry son, they will get you out”. ‘Mister’ just called my dad’s name a few times.

After a while I heard voices above. They heard my shouts and the rescue operation began from then. I could see the stars in the sky through what appeared to be a small gap. I could hear the dog trying to find its way out and shouted up for them to see where it appeared. They saw him, giving them some idea as to where I was. I eventually shouted up to them to lower a torch, which they did, and was able to guide them to me.

The marvellous rescue workers toiled throughout the night. I was finally rescued after eight hours or so. Unfortunately, my dad, aged 41, and ‘Mister’ did not survive. They found a pocket watch on my dad, stopped at 8.45 p.m. My mother and younger brother were evacuated when all this happened. I was sixteen at the time but it still remains in my thoughts.

The bomb was evidently a 2000 pounder that landed just 50-60 feet from the house. I never heard it coming or explode – it is strange but true when they say that you do not hear the one with your name on it and I can vouch for that.

Evacuation

In August 1939, aged 13, I was on holiday. There had been much talk of war for over 12 months and we cut our holiday short in order that my parents could attend my half brothers wedding which had been brought forward as he was being called up into the army.
The following week we were called back to school to prepare for evacuation. Each day we attended school as normal taking a suitcase with essential clothes which were checked each morning by our teacher followed by gas mask drill. We then played various indoor games until home time. On Friday 1 September we were told that we were leaving and duly labelled, lined up to march to Upton Park station. I had always been a fussy eater and a very bad riser but the ‘bush telegraph’ had done its job and most of the parents were at the school gate to see us off and call loving messages, mine being ‘Get up first call and eat everything that’s put in front of you.’
Why we didn’t go round the corner to East Ham station I do not know but we marched in crocodile behind the headmistress singing ‘ I have lost the doh of my clarinet, the me, fah etc.’ and caught a train to Ealing Broadway where I believe we should have caught a train to Cornwall. However, we were put on a train for Oxfordshire and told we were off to Kidlington. We soon ate our sandwiches and then settled down to watch the countryside speeding by. Some time later we arrived at Bicester where we were taken to the village hall and given a drink of milk, put on to buses and driven to Kidlington. Another village hall, where we were put into groups and sent round the village to be billeted. By now it was getting quite late but on we trudged stopping at various houses to leave girls at their new homes. At the end of the Banbury Road there were four of us left and we knocked at a door and a very pretty little lady came running round the side and we entered in, and that was how my friend Joan and I met Mrs Maycock. Two other friends were welcomed next door, and after something to eat we had to write a card to our parents with our new address and then met Mr Maycock and a short while later we went to bed. Mr. & Mrs ‘M’ as I called them had only been married for 2 years and in later years I really pitied them having to take in 2 teenagers, mind you, teenagers in those days weren’t anywhere near as stroppy as they are these days.
On the Saturday the teacher in charge of our group came to check that we were ok and then we had little to do. Mrs ‘M’ suggested that we took a walk over to the aerodrome which we did and gazed at the one mechanic, the petrol pump and the [plane.
On Sunday 3rd September we went to visit Mrs Maycock senior who lived by the canal and heard the prime minister declare war. I was somewhat bemused to see Mrs Maycock senior crying at the thought of war.
For a few weeks we shared the senior school with the local children, they going for lessons in the morning and we having the use of the school during the afternoons. This worked quite well as we had games and nature rambles in the morning, but soon afterwards we were given an old zoo house with various barns where the animals had been kept. As this was the other end of the village Mr ‘M’ who was a keen cyclist made me up a bike from spare parts which helped a lot. My parents came for a visit and laid down the ground rules and both Joan and I settled into a routine. Come Christmas I had a new cycle which I must say had better brakes that the other one. Joan decided to go home as there had been no bombing and I moved into the small bedroom. Mrs’M’ began to let the double room to air force personnel for weekends and longer when their wives visited.
Our teachers had been very strict about school uniform but once clothes rationing came into force we were allowed a little latitude. The winters were very cold and I suffered badly from chilblains but there were compensations in that we used to go to ice-skating on Benheim lake, and come the summer we used to go fishing in the river and canal. Our gym mistress used to take us swimming in the river and used to insist we swam in the nude much to the joy of the local boys on the other side of the river. It was freezing. I only went home occasionally when there were lulls in the blitz, my mother had returned to nursing and worked shiftwork. Returning home one night in a heavy raid she was crouched against a wall when something touched her shoulder. Convinced that she was hit by shrapnel she turned round fearfully to find a ginger cat patting her shoulder.
Mr ‘M’ was a bricklayer by trade but all civilian building stopped when war broke out so he got a job at the local bacon factory and used to bring home offcuts which Mrs’M’ made into delicious pies. He was also a very keen gardener and we never lacked fresh vegetables. With the hens which they kept and the odd pig or two they were always busy. I tried my hands at growing vegetables but was not keen on weeding and had quire a few lectures. The school dinners were very small and I suffered badly from hunger, present nutritionists tell us we were better fed in wartime but as a growing girl I dispute this.
The council house where I lived had one cold water tap between four houses and the first one up in winter would boil a kettle of rainwater and pour it over the tap to defrost it. We had a shed in the garden with a bucket for a toilet which was emptied by a collector once a week, and on one memorable occasion the axle broke on the cart and the contents spilt all over the road in the centre of the village.
We had loads of fun and lots of hard work. When we had RAF personnel staying we would play darts in the evening which I enjoyed even though it meant I had to get up early to do my homework. My mother would never have recognised me especially when I got up early on May morning to cycle to Oxford to hear the choir on Magdalen tower.
We regularly attended church and also the cinema in the village especially when Deanna Durbin was on. Mr & Mrs ‘M’ treated me to the pantomime in Oxford and occasionally we went dancing at the aerodrome after Mr ‘M’ became a handyman there. Though I must admit that as a skinny fifteen year old I was hardly ‘Belle of the Ball’.
I was a member of the school guide company and enjoyed getting badges. The Maycock family treated me as one of their own and we have remained friends all our lives, Mrs ‘M’ and some of her family are still alive (2004) Sometimes I would go to Woodstock where Mrs ‘M’s mother managed a sweet shop and I remember sitting in bed with her sister Lilian and Mr ‘M’s sister eating unrationed sweets. My friends and I tried smoking in the blackout but when I was 16 Mr ‘M’ gave us a box of cigarettes and told us it was now legal. We didn’t bother any more!
We had very little German air activity over Kidlington. Once when my parents were visiting a plane came over and my father said it was a german, and everyone laughed until a stick of bombs fell on the aerodrome. The pilot got away because the airman manning one of the guns had hopped over the fence to meet his girl in Oxford. A plane was shot down one Xmas time and one of our RAF friends was guarding it in bitter cold weather so we cycled out with hot soup for him.
Eventually we took our exams and left for home with mixed feelings. Some of the girls couldn’t settle in their foster homes and they opened a very large house where they lived for four years. I had loved being one of a large family but looked forward to my new life at work. I was so lucky to have the billet that I did and Mrs’M’ was paid the princely sum of 7/6 (37 1/2p) for my keep. My mother gave some extras such as blankets and as I said we have always remained friends.