Bombs dropped in the ward of: Haverstock

Working and travelling to London in the wars years was no picnic; more often that not air raids shut down the underground, so getting to and from work could mean hours of delay.

My father and sister worked for the LNER (London North Eastern Railway) in the King’s Cross Station offices on Cheney Road, which have since been demolished and replaced with a car park. To help with the problem of clearing the station in the event of an air raid a volunteer fire guard duty was organised by railway staff. The duty required that the guard spend hours on the station roof listening for sirens or watching for approaching aircraft: if an attack was imminent the fire guard sounded a siren to clear the building. (My father held the record for clearing the station the highest number of times.)

My sister Connie was a typist in the typing pool. She recalls that on one occasion word went round that the greengrocer at the bottom of the escalator at King’s Cross underground station had received a delivery of cherries, so she rushed off to join the queue, quite forgetting to take a bag to put them in. She decided to use her ‘tin hat’ as a carrier. On returning to ground level she realised that there was an air raid, so she hurried through the station to get to the office shelter.

Suddenly there was the sound of a V1 and just as suddenly the engine cut out. The next thing she knew a soldier knocked her to the ground and threw himself over her as protection from the blast. As luck would have it the buzz bomb landed just outside the station, causing a great deal of damage and loss of life. She said she would never forget the screams and panic of people trying to get out of the trains. When she finally got back to the office, father was waiting for her, asking where the hell she had been, and why she wasn’t wearing her tin hat. She showed him the tin hat with the cherries in it and he went mad!

16 October 1940

At the height if the Blitz, my grandfather, Alf Wilson, was serving with his local unit of the London Heavy Rescue Service. The Service came into being as part of the Civil Defence programme, and was made up of builders, plumbers, electricians and skilled workers, who helped clear up the debris created by the German attacks. They were really builders in reverse: they helped stabilise the devastated area to allow the Light Rescue Service safe access to trapped civilians. The Heavy Rescue Service got their name from the equipment they used, heavy winching and lifting gear that was carried round in the back of an old pick-up truck; the Light rescue Service got their name from the light gear they carried round, ropes and stretchers and first-aid kits.

This particular night had been the heaviest night of the Blitz so far... a full moon, known as a 'bomber's moon', had aided the enemy's cause to devastating effect. Responding to a call from the local Civil Defence HQ (whose blue sign on Theobald's Road can still be seen from a window inside Camden Local Archive Library), Alf's unit attended the devastation in Baldwin's Gardens: a five-storey building, housing civilians, had been hit and there were a number of civilians trapped beneath the debris. The nearby church of St Alban's was just finishing an impromptu mass in commemoration of the civilian dead when an undetected bomb went off among the ruins, killing my grandfather and his crew. The priest who had held the mass was showered in debris but crouched down behind a nearby grave stone and was thus saved. The names of those rescue workers appeared in the St Alban's parish newsletter later that month.

My mother knew little, if any, of this account of the death of her father, as she was evacuated to Somerset and only heard of her father's death late on in the war. On 16 October 2001, thanks to the efforts and generosity of the Parks Department of Camden Council, a small ceremony was held in Red Lion Square where a bench, dedicated to the memory of those civilians and rescue workers who died on the same night 61 years earlier, was unveiled. My mother could at last say goodbye to her father, and I had a story to tell my children and keep the spirit of Alf Wilson very much alive.

My father had a shoe repair shop in Somers Town during the war and we lived over the shop.
One night during the blitz the front windows and door were blown out and there was a scramble of looters helping themselves to shoes, polish, lasts, anything in fact that they could carry away.
My father and the air-raid wardens put a stop to that ! But, even with the house boarded up my dad would not go down to the shelter although my mum, my two brothers, my sister and I went every night to the tube with our 'bundle' consisting of an a small eiderdown to lie on, we slept on the floor on the platform until, later on in the war we were allocated bunks.
The station we sheltered in was Leicester Square because Mum said our nearest one, King's Cross, was too rough !
We also took a large flask of cocoa and some mugs.
I was five when the war started and, to this day, the sound of the air-raid warning sends a chill up my spine.
Later us four children were evacuated to Northamptonshire but only stayed a few weeks because we were so homesick and afraid Mum and Dad would be killed in the blitz.
So Dad came and took us all home again, there was a lull in the bombing and we moved to Kentish Town but unfortunately a doodlebug fell nearby, in Clarence Way, many of our friends were killed.
My worst memory was going to school and one of our teachers turning up dressed in her fur coat. which was all she had been able to salvage from her bombed out house, I can still hear her sobs. Us kids were bewildered because we did not know what to say.
There are so many memories of the war.
The night the incendiary bomb came down the lift shaft, but luckily the lift was up at the time. We were covered in black smuts and debris but unhurt.
My second evacuation later on in the war, this time to South Wales, my Mum running up and down the platform pleading with the guards to find out where we were going !
Taking my 11 plus in the air-raid shelter.
Watching goggle-eyed as neighbours were dug out of the ruins of their houses.
The fun we had down the tube, singing songs. the cameraderie.
Catching measles, being taken to the Tottenham Fever Hospical, being put under the bed there when the warning sounded, we could not go down the shelter because we were infectious.
The Nurse running in screaming 'they have invaded the Balkans' (As a kid I had no idea what the Balkans were)!
When nearby houses were bombed people shovelled up their coal from the cellars, figuring that the occupants would have no further use for it.
The night Holy Trinity Church spire in Kentish Town took a direct hit and I think can still be seen with hald its spire missing.My father had a shoe repair shop in Somers Town during the war and we lived over the shop.
One night during the blitz the front windows and door were blown out and there was a scramble of looters helping themselves to shoes, polish, lasts, anything in fact that they could carry away.
My father and the air-raid wardens put a stop to that ! But, even with the house boarded up my dad would not go down to the shelter although my mum, my two brothers, my sister and I went every night to the tube with our 'bundle' consisting of an a small eiderdown to lie on, we slept on the floor on the platform until, later on in the war we were allocated bunks.
The station we sheltered in was Leicester Square because Mum said our nearest one, King's Cross, was too rough !
We also took a large flask of cocoa and some mugs.
I was five when the war started and, to this day, the sound of the air-raid warning sends a chill up my spine.
Later us four children were evacuated to Northamptonshire but only stayed a few weeks because we were so homesick and afraid Mum and Dad would be killed in the blitz.
So Dad came and took us all home again, there was a lull in the bombing and we moved to Kentish Town but unfortunately a doodlebug fell nearby, in Clarence Way, many of our friends were killed.
My worst memory was going to school and one of our teachers turning up dressed in her fur coat. which was all she had been able to salvage from her bombed out house, I can still hear her sobs. Us kids were bewildered because we did not know what to say.
There are so many memories of the war.
The night the incendiary bomb came down the lift shaft, but luckily the lift was up at the time. We were covered in black smuts and debris but unhurt.
My second evacuation later on in the war, this time to South Wales, my Mum running up and down the platform pleading with the guards to find out where we were going !
Taking my 11 plus in the air-raid shelter.
Watching goggle-eyed as neighbours were dug out of the ruins of their houses.
The fun we had down the tube, singing songs. the cameraderie.
Catching measles, being taken to the Tottenham Fever Hospical, being put under the bed there when the warning sounded, we could not go down the shelter because we were infectious.
The Nurse running in screaming 'they have invaded the Balkans' (As a kid I had no idea what the Balkans were)!
When nearby houses were bombed people shovelled up their coal from the cellars, figuring that the occupants would have no further use for it.
The night Holy Trinity Church spire in Kentish Town took a direct hit and I think can still be seen with hald its spire missing.My father had a shoe repair shop in Somers Town during the war and we lived over the shop.
One night during the blitz the front windows and door were blown out and there was a scramble of looters helping themselves to shoes, polish, lasts, anything in fact that they could carry away.
My father and the air-raid wardens put a stop to that ! But, even with the house boarded up my dad would not go down to the shelter although my mum, my two brothers, my sister and I went every night to the tube with our 'bundle' consisting of an a small eiderdown to lie on, we slept on the floor on the platform until, later on in the war we were allocated bunks.
The station we sheltered in was Leicester Square because Mum said our nearest one, King's Cross, was too rough !
We also took a large flask of cocoa and some mugs.
I was five when the war started and, to this day, the sound of the air-raid warning sends a chill up my spine.
Later us four children were evacuated to Northamptonshire but only stayed a few weeks because we were so homesick and afraid Mum and Dad would be killed in the blitz.
So Dad came and took us all home again, there was a lull in the bombing and we moved to Kentish Town but unfortunately a doodlebug fell nearby, in Clarence Way, many of our friends were killed.
My worst memory was going to school and one of our teachers turning up dressed in her fur coat. which was all she had been able to salvage from her bombed out house, I can still hear her sobs. Us kids were bewildered because we did not know what to say.
There are so many memories of the war.
The night the incendiary bomb came down the lift shaft, but luckily the lift was up at the time. We were covered in black smuts and debris but unhurt.
My second evacuation later on in the war, this time to South Wales, my Mum running up and down the platform pleading with the guards to find out where we were going !
Taking my 11 plus in the air-raid shelter.
Watching goggle-eyed as neighbours were dug out of the ruins of their houses.
The fun we had down the tube, singing songs. the cameraderie.
Catching measles, being taken to the Tottenham Fever Hospical, being put under the bed there when the warning sounded, we could not go down the shelter because we were infectious.
The Nurse running in screaming 'they have invaded the Balkans' (As a kid I had no idea what the Balkans were)!
When nearby houses were bombed people shovelled up their coal from the cellars, figuring that the occupants would have no further use for it.
The night Holy Trinity Church spire in Kentish Town took a direct hit and I think can still be seen with hald its spire missing.