Bombs dropped in the ward of: St Pancras and Somers Town

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!

In August 1935 my mother died of breast cancer. We lived in Dagenham at the time. She left my father, Frederick, my sister, Rose and me, Lilian. After she died we moved to Bethnal Green to be nearer family. My father was working and had found it difficult bringing us girls up by himself.

I was partially blind and went to the Daniel Street blind school but had always wanted to go to the school round the corner in Wilmot Street. My father was friendly with a lady called Ann and I knew her as Aunt Ann. She would make me tea after school. My father used to take her out a couple of times a week.

In 1939 my father and my friend, Beatty's parents, discussed sending Beatty and me to stay with Beatty's Aunty in Southport. Her surname was Chick. It was just before the start of the war and they thought it would be best for us. We packed up our things and were put on a train to Southport and told to look for the clock when we got to our destination and wait under it, where we would be picked up by Aunty, and we would recognise her because she would be wearing a brooch.

Well we got off the train and waited under the clock, as directed, which seemed to be along time, but we were determined not to move. The porter asked us in a broad Lancashire accent what we were doing. I replied, in my cockney accent, that we had been told to wait under the clock. He seemed satisfied with this and walked off. Eventually Aunty came and colected us and took us home. I went to an ordinary school in Southport then. After 7 months we returned to Bethnal Green.

We were back in London by 1940. I spent the next 2 months going to the school in Wilmot Street because troops were billeted at the blind school as the war had started by this time. This made me feel that I was the same as the other girls and I liked it there.

I was 12 years old and was about to be evacuated for the second time in June 1940. With father being at work all day it was thought best that I should go. Rose was older than me and working up town. Beatty was also older than me and had turned 14 years. She wanted to start work and wouldn't be coming along this time. A programme of evacuation had already started from London schools even though the Blitz had not begun at this time. Eventually though, many people started to return to London prematurely, thinking it was safe, only to be killed when the bombing started.

We all assembled in the school yard for 9.00 a.m. equipped with suitcase, gasmask and a numbered label on the lapel of our coats. Buses took us to King's Cross to await the trains. A few paretns did come to say goodbye and there was plenty of hugs and sobs. It was chaos at King's Cross with children and babies everywhere. Older ones in groups, babies in long prams. Officials everywhere checking numbers etc., but no one would say where we were going. It was rumourned Cornwall but no one was sure.

It was not until we reached Cardiff that we finally, after many questions, were told we were heading for Rhymney, Monmouthshire, S Wales. People didn't travel very much in those days, especially us East Enders, we thought of Wales as being another country. The thought of being so far away from home made even those that had not yet had a weep, cry. A friend of mine who was on the train, Susan Braithwaite. She had seven sisters and when she later got married in Bethnal Green all her sisters were bridesmaids. We kept in contact for a while when I moved to Leeds and then we stopped writing.

On the train also was another girl, called Phyllis, she was Jewish, she was crying and we got together for some comfort. Some of the other children were part of one family. They were saying that they were not going to be split up. Phyllis and I said that we would stick together and try to stay in the same house.

When we arrived at the station of Rhymney we were given hot cocoa drinks and biscuits by the ladies serving from trolleys on the platform and then off we set again. Two buses met us at the station to take us to a school. There we filed through a room where we were weighed, measured, examined for head lice and a spatula put over our tongues with mouths wide open and having to say "Ah"! Then into another classroom to be sorted out for accommodation. It wasn't possible for my new found friend and I to stay in the same house together, there just wasn't room but in the end we did get next door to each other.

At first I stayed with a couple called, Isaac Price and his wife and they lived in a one up one down miners cottage. They had a 16 year old daughter, called Alice. Isaac was on a regular night shift. I slept with Alice and Mrs Price slept in a single bed in an alcove of the bedroom. Before we went to bed for that first day we just had time for a snack. That first day had been a very long day. I laid in bed planning in my head, how I was going to get back to London even if I had to walk as I didn't want to stay in this strange place. People in the village were very kind and helpful and it all got better as the days went on.

The people I was staying with had another daughter who was returning home from service somewhere down South. There would be no room for me in the small house. Mrs Price's brother, Will, who was a widower, was getting married again very soon. It was arranged that I would move in with them straight after the wedding.

I moved in with them and they lived in a two bedroomed end terrace house with a back garden. I had a bedroom to myself and was so well looked after as if I was their own daughter. They had no family and I called them Uncle Will and Aunt Sally. He was a Baptist and she was a Congregationalist. They both carried on going to their respective churches. They went to church 3 times a day on a Sunday.

I used to go to Sunday school in the morning and then again with Aunt Sally and found myself singing in the choir with Aunt Sally. They had such lovely voices. There was also other things that I did at the Chapel during the week so my time was kep occupied.

One memorable Sunday there wasa terrific thunderstorm and we just couldn't leave the house for evening chapel. Hailstones thundered down like mothballs and lightening struck chimneys and roofs. We being the top house of the sloping street just had a couple of inches inside the house but below in the village centre hailstones were up to your waise and the mud washed down from the mountains ruined lots of homes. It was as bas as being bombed.

Saturday was the time to help out with the housework and I got 9d. and taken to the local cinema for the first house performance.

We went to school in a disused chapel and had equipment sent from London. We were separated from the Welsh children because of this and only came in contact with them after school when we met them in the street and played with them. We had been accompanied down to Wales by our own teachers, Mrs Meals and Miss Long. All ages joined in with all the lessons and we had good PE and both sexes played cricket and rounders etc., in the local park. Later our teachers had to go back to London and a Welshman took over. He went into the RAF later on.

When we were first evacuated some women and mothers came with us to Wales but later returned to London with their youngest children leaving the oldest in Wales.It was heard later that some of the families had been killed in the Blitz.

In December, 1940, my father died of pneumonia. A letter arrived for Mr & Mrs Price and my Uncle Will had to tell me
the bad news. He told me my father had gone to Jesus. I was in shock and couldn't believe it as I was very upset. I hadn't seen my father all the time I was in Wales, I loved my father. I yelled at him 'there is no Jesus'. I was bit hysterical and he slapped my face to calm me down.

I stayed for a further 6 months in Wales. I was in Rhymney about 18 months in all. My stay in Rhymney on the whole was a happy one and I was very fortunate to have such lovely people looking after me.

During the time I was in Wales my sister, Roase, had met her fiancee. He went through the awful experience of being at Dunkirk. He came from Leeds, West Yorkshire. Rose had met his family and had written to me to tell me about them and how they were willing to take me so that we could be together. They were also willing to look after Queenie, our Yorkshire Terrier. So later on in 1941 Rose took charge of me and came to collect me to take me to Leeds and I had to say farewell to my new found family in Rhymney. I eventually
settled down in Leeds where I made my home and had my own family, this being another story.

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.