Bombs dropped in the borough of: Hounslow

I didn’t like to admit it, because everyone was saying how terrible it was, but all the goings on were more exciting than I’d ever imagined. Everything was changing. Some men came along and cut down all the iron railings in front of the houses in Digby Road (to make tanks they said); Boy scouts collected old aluminium saucepans (to make Spitfires); Machines came and dug huge holes in the Common right where we used to play football (to make sandbags); Everyone was given a gas mask (which I hated) that had to be carried wherever you went; An air raid shelter made from sheets of corrugated iron, was put up at the end of our garden, where the chickens used to be; Our trains were full of soldiers, waving and cheering, all going one way — towards the seaside; Silver barrage balloons floated over the rooftops; Policemen wore tin hats painted blue, with the letter P on the front; Fire engines were painted grey; At night it was pitch dark outside because of the blackout; Dad dug up most of his flower beds to plant potatoes and runner beans; And, best of all, I watched it all happening, day by day, almost on my own. That is, without all my school chums getting in the way and having to have their say. For they’d all been evacuated into the country somewhere or other, but our family were still at number 69, just as usual. For when the letters first came from our schools — the girls to go to Wales, me to Norfolk — Mum would have none of it. “Your not going anywhere” she said “We’re all staying together”. So we did. But it was never again the same as it used to be. Even though, as the weeks went by, and nothing happened, it was easy enough to forget that there was a war on at all.
Which is why, when it got to the first week of June 1940, it seemed only natural that, as usual, we went on our weeks summer holiday to Bognor Regis on the South coast, as usual. The fact that only the week before, our army had escaped from the Germans by the skin of its teeth by being ferried across the Channel from Dunkirk by almost anything that floated, was hardly remarked about. We had of course watched the endless trains rumble their way back from the direction of the seaside, silent and with the carriage blinds drawn, but that didn’t interfere with our plans. Mum and Dad had worked hard, saved hard, for their holiday and they weren’t having them upset by other people’s problems.
But for my Dad it meant a great deal more than that. During the first world war, as a young man of eighteen, he’d fought in the mud and blood of the trenches at Ypres, Passhendel and Vimy Ridge. He came back with the certain knowledge that all war is wrong. It may mean glory, fame and fortune to the handful who relish it, but for the great majority of ordinary men and their families it brings only hardship, pain and tears. His way of expressing it was to ignore it. To show the strength of his feelings by refusing to take part. Our family holiday to the very centre of the conflict, in the darkest days of our darkest hour, was one man’s public demonstration of his private beliefs
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It started off just like any other Saturday afternoon: Dad in the garden, Mum in the kitchen, the two girls gone to the pictures, me just mucking about. Warm sunshine, clear blue skies. The air raid siren had just been sounded, but even that was normal. We’d got used to it by now. Just had to wait for the wailing and moaning to go quiet and, before you knew it, the cheerful high-pitched note of the all clear started up. But this time it didn’t. Instead, there comes the drone of aeroplane engines. Lots of them. High up. And the boom, boom, boom of anti-aircraft guns. The sound gets louder and louder until the air seems to quiver. And only then, when it seems almost overhead, can you see the tiny black dots against the deep, empty blue of the sky. Dozens and dozens of them. Neatly arranged in V shaped patterns, so high, so slow, they hardly seem to move. Then other, single dots, dropping down through them from above. The faint chatter of machine guns. A thin, black thread of smoke unravelling towards the ground. Is it one of theirs or one of ours? Clusters of tiny puffs of white, drifting along together like dandelion seeds. Then one, larger than the rest, gently parachuting towards the ground. And another. And another. Everything happening in the slowest of slow motions. Seeming to hang there in the sky, too lazy to get a move on. But still the black dots go on and on.
Dad goes off to meet the girls. Mum makes the tea. I can’t take my eyes off what’s going on. Great clouds of white and grey smoke billowing up into the sky way over beyond the school. People come out into the street to watch. The word goes round that “The poor old Docks have copped it”. By the time the sun goes down the planes have gone, the all clear sounded, and the smoke towers right across the horizon. Then as the light fades, a red fiery glow shines brighter and brighter. Even from this far away we can see it flicker and flash on the clouds above like some gigantic furnace. Everyone seems remarkably calm. As though not quite believing what they see. Then one of our neighbours, a man who always kept to himself, runs up and down the street shouting “Isleworth! Isleworth! It’s alright at Isleworth! Come on, we’ve all got to go to Isleworth! That’s where I’m going — Isleworth!” But no one takes any notice of him. And we can’t all go to Isleworth — wherever that is. Then where can we go? What can we do? And by way of an ironic answer, the siren starts it’s wailing again.
We spend that night in the shelter at the end of the garden. Listening to the crump of bombs in the distance. Thinking about the poor devils underneath it all. Among them are probably one of Dad’s close friends from work, George Nesbitt, a driver, his wife Iris, and their twelve-year-old daughter, Eileen. They live at Stepney, right by the docks. We’d once been there for tea. A block of flats with narrow stone stairs and tiny little rooms. From an iron balcony you could see over the high dock’s wall at the forest of cranes and painted funnels of the ships. Mr Nesbitt knew all about them. “ The red one with the yellow and black bands and the letter W is The West Indies Company. Came in on Wednesday with bananas, sugar, and I daresay a few crates of rum. She’s due to be loaded with flour, apples and tinned vegetables — and that one next to it…” He also knows a lot about birds. Every corner of their flat with a birdcage of chirping, flashing, brightly coloured feathers and bright, winking eyes. In the kitchen a tame parrot that coos and squawks in private conversation with Mrs Nesbitt. Eileen is a quiet girl who reads a lot and, like her mother, is quick to see the funny side of things. We’d once spent a holiday with them at Bognor. One of the best we’d ever had. Sitting here, in the chilly dankness of our shelter, it’s best not to think what might have happened to them. But difficult not to.
The next night is the same. Only worse. And the next. Ditto. We seem to have hardly slept. And it’s getting closer. More widely spread. Mum and Dad seem to take it in their stride. Unruffled by it all. Almost as though it wasn’t really happening. Anxious only to see that we’re not going cold or hungry. Then one night, after about a week of this, it suddenly landed on our doorstep.
At the end of our garden is a brick wall. On the other side, a short row of terraced houses. Then another, much higher, wall. And on the other side of that, the Berger paint factory. One of the largest in London. A place so inflammable that even the smallest fire there had always bought out the fire engines like a swarm of bees. Now the whole place is alight. Tanks exploding. Flames shooting high up in the air. Bright enough to read a newspaper if anyone was so daft. Firemen come rushing up through the garden. Rolling out hoses to train over the wall. Flattening out Dad’s delphiniums on the way. They’re astonished to find us sitting quietly sitting in our hole in the ground. “Get out!” they urge
“It’s about to go up! Make a run for it!” So we all troop off, trying to look as if we’re not in a hurry, to the public shelters on Hackney Marshes. Underground trenches, dripping with moisture, crammed with people on hard wooden planks, crying, arguing, trying to doze off. It was the longest night of my life. And at first light, after the all-clear, we walk back along Homerton High Street. So sure am I that our house had been burnt to a cinder, I can hardly bear to turn the corner into Digby Road. But it’s still there! Untouched! Unbowed! Firemen and hoses all gone. Everything remarkably normal. I feel a pang of guilt at running away and leaving it to its fate all by itself. Make it a silent promise that I won’t do it again. A promise that lasts for just two more nights of the blitz.

I hear it coming from a long way off. Through the din of gunfire and the clanging of fire engine and ambulance bells, a small, piercing, screeching sound. Rapidly getting louder and louder. Rising to a shriek. Cramming itself into our tiny shelter where we crouch. Reaching a crescendo of screaming violence that vibrates inside my head. To be obliterated by something even worse. A gigantic explosion that lifts the whole shelter…the whole garden…the whole of Digby Road, a foot into the air. When the shuddering stops, and a blanket of silence comes down, Dad says, calm as you like, “That was close!”. He clambers out into the darkness. I join him. He thinks it must have been on the other side of the railway. The glue factory perhaps. Or the box factory at the end of the road. And then, in the faintest of twilights, I just make out a jagged black shape where our house used to be.
When dawn breaks, we pick our way silently over the rubble of bricks and splintered wood that once was our home. None of it means a thing. It could have been anybody’s home, anywhere. We walk away. Away from Digby Road. I never even look back. I can’t. The heavy lead weight inside of me sees to that.

Just a few days before, one of the van drivers where Dad works had handed him a piece of paper. On it was written the name and address of one of Dad’s distant cousins. Someone he hadn’t seen for years. May Pelling. She had spotted the driver delivering in her High Street and had asked if he happened to know George Houser. “Of course — everyone knows good old George!”. So she scribbles down her address, asks him to give it to him and tell him that if ever he needs help in these terrible times, to contact her. That piece of paper was in his wallet, in the shelter, the night before. One of the few things we still had to our name. The address is 102 Osidge Lane, Southgate.
What are we doing here? Why here? Where is here? It’s certainly not Isleworth - but might just as well be. The tube station we got off said ’Southgate’. Yet Dad said this is North London. Or should it be North of London? Because, going by the map of the tube line in the carriage, which I’ve been studying, Southgate is only two stops from the end of the line. It’s just about falling off the edge of London altogether! And why ‘Piccadilly Line’? This is about as far from Piccadilly as the North Pole. Perhaps that’s the reason why we’ve come. No signs of bombs here. Come to that, not much of the war at all. Not country, not town. Not a place to be evacuated to, or from. Everything new. And clean. And tidy. Ornamental trees, laden with red berries, their leaves turning gold, line the pavements. A garden in front of every house. With a gate, a path, a lawn, and flowers. Everything staked, labelled, trimmed. Nothing out of place. Except us. I’ve still got my pyjama trousers tucked into my socks. The girls are wearing raincoats and headscarves. Dad has a muffler where his clean white collar usually is. Mum’s got on her old winter coat, the one she never goes out in. And carries a tied up bundle of bits and pieces we had in the shelter. Now and again I notice people giving us a sideways glance, then looking quickly away in case you might catch their eye. Are they shocked? embarrassed? shy, even? No one seems at all interested in asking if they can help this gaggle of strangers in a strange land. Not even the road sweeper when Dad asks him the way to Osidge Lane.

The door opens. A woman’s face. Dark eyes, dark hair, rosy cheeks. Her smile checked in mid air at the sight of us on her doorstep. Intake of breath. Eyes widen with shock. Her simple words brimming with concern. “George! Nell! What’s the matter?” Mum says:” We’ve just lost everything we had” An answer hardly audible through the choking sob in her throat. Biting her lip to keep back the tears. It was the first time I’d ever seen my mother cry.

We are immediately swept inside on a wave of compassion. Kind words, helping hands, sympathy, hot food and cups of tea. Aunt May lives here with her husband, Uncle Ernie and their ten-year-old daughter, Pam. And two single ladies sheltering from the blitz. Five people in a small three-bedroom house. Now the five of us turn up, unannounced, out of the blue. With nothing but our ration books and what we are wearing. Taken in and cared for by people I’d never even seen before.
In every way Osidge Lane is different from Digby Road. Yet it is just like coming home. We are safe. They are family. For this is a Houser house.

I have worked overtime and rest days throughout Royal Ascot Week dozens of times over the years but I think the day I picked up Alf and Daisy is the freshest in my mind. It was a gorgeous day and my driver and I were on our normal service duty, 701 from Gravesend. I guessed the young couple who boarded us up the Old Kent Road were off to the races — best clothes and a paper carrier bag holding a warm cardigan, sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper and a lemonade bottle full of cold tea practically shouted “out for the day at Ascot” — and so it was. They sat about halfway up the coach, making a start on the sandwiches almost immediately after paying their fare. Alf had done the trip before and kept telling Daisy how quickly we should travel once we had left the London traffic behind and what a great day they were going to enjoy. Daisy was very quiet until we crossed the river at Lambeth Bridge and approached Victoria. Then, obviously in strange country, began to ply Alf with questions — “Where were we now?”, “How much farther was the race course?”, “What was the great big building over there?”. Although he had made the trip once before, I suspect that Alf had probably been more likely to be studying form in his newspaper than looking out the window at the passing scene but he rose to the occasion nobly and when he didn’t know the answer to a question he promptly made up one of his own. Thus I learnt that St. George’s Hospital at Hyde Park Corner was “some big toff’s house” and Hyde Park Corner itself became Marble Arch! Every time I passed up and down the coach collecting fares I overheard more of this highly amusing conversation and I must admit I began to see the route in quite a different light from that day on.

But the best was yet to come. Within about one and a half miles of our destination the coach had to slow down considerably as the Royal Carriage swung out of a lane in front of us. It was a beautiful sight — the horses groomed to perfection, the silver in the harness winking in the bright sunlight, the panels of the coach-work gleaming with a mirror-like polish and the groom and postillions at the back — very smart in their Royal Livery. Obviously they were going to pick up the Royal Family and take them to the course. Then, from behind me, came the unmistakable voice of Daisy with yet another question, “Why are we going so slow, Alf?” Not being able to see from his seat, Alf got up and walked to the front and I stood aside so that he could see the Royal Coach in all its glory. He took one look and then turned his head back to call out, “No wonder we’re going so blinking slow — we’re behind a HORSE AND CART!”

At least that episode was more amusing than yet another journey on the 701 route. My driver at the time was Tom, a young bachelor of about twenty-five who lived alone in a caravan at Wraysbury. We knew it would be a busy journey, leaving Staines at about 8 a.m. and due at Victoria about an hour later. The traffic was heavy through Houslow and Brentford and even heavier when we pulled up at traffic lights near Kew Bridge, alongside Brentford Market. The lights changed to green and the coach pulled away. Seconds later I became aware that strangled noises were coming from the driving cab alongside me. At first I thought Tom was trying to sing and turned to joke about the quality of his voice. To my horror I saw that he was half up from the driving seat, hands dropped from the wheel, saliva trickling from the corner of his mouth and eyes bolting from his head. Luckily, his foot had also slipped partly off the accelerator pedal but the engine was still running and the coach travelling at about ten miles per hour towards the oncoming traffic. Without consciously realising what I was doing, I leaned over, thrusting my right arm across Tom to reach the handbrake and struggling to pull the wheel towards the kerb with my left. To my relief, the coach responded, actually mounting the kerb and running some yards along it. Fate was kind that day as it was 4th October and my wedding anniversary and there were no cyclists riding on the nearside at that moment and no pedestrians standing on the kerbside.

Someone opened the door and the driver of a passing trolley bus who had witnessed the incident dashed in and turned off the engine while an inspector materialised to phone for an ambulance. The odd thing about the whole affair was that I remained as cool as a cucumber until after the ambulance had taken poor Tom off to hospital — even writing out an auxiliary waybill and getting the passengers on the next coach to continue their journey — but as soon as that was accomplished I almost collapsed and had to be half carried into a nearby teashop till I felt fit enough to travel again. I felt a real fool — shaking like a leaf and crying like a baby for almost twenty minutes. A team of mechanics arrived from Chiswick Works to examine the coach and, finding everything in order, take it back to Chiswick for a more detailed check-up. Until we knew what was wrong with Tom it was always possible that he had been affected by fumes or even suffered an electric shock of some kind.

The inspector put me on a bus back to Staines where I had to make a detailed report, both written and verbal, to the Chief Inspector and arrived to find that the news had gone before me and I was treated like some kind of heroine. True — I had averted what might have been a very serious accident, but since I had acted without even thinking about it and since I had been moved by nothing more heroic than a strong sense of self preservation I felt rather a fraud. Probably sensing this Ron Coles — a depot inspector at that time but now the Chief — told me the police would almost undoubtedly be along to arrest me soon on a charge of driving without a licence!

We later learned that Tom had suffered an epileptic fit and would no longer be allowed to drive for us. Apparently, when questioned by the doctors, he could remember waking up on the floor of his caravan on several occasions in the past and had believed that he had nothing more than a restless night. The attack on the coach was the first time that the affliction had manifested itself in waking hours. Thus make it possible to diagnose and treat him.

The following day, with a relief driver, I did the same duty and one of the passengers brought me a big box of chocolates. It was a very nice gesture on her part but there was another sequel to the story that still makes me laugh when I remember it. On completing the day’s work I was told that I was to go to London to meet one of the Board Managers who wished to thank me for my actions the day before. Instead of reporting for work I was to present myself at Western House, Oxford Circus at 10 a.m. and even provided with a special Green Line Pass for the occasion. When the news got around in the garage my mates began to speculate as to what form the gratitude would take — a life-saving medal, perhaps? It was almost certainly a sum of money — estimations going even as high as twenty pounds.

Although still feeling something of a fraud and very embarrassed over the whole affair I duly arrived at Western House and entered the office where I was greeted by a very distinguished gentleman whose name I never caught and do not know to this day. After congratulating me on my presence of mind and coolness of action he mentioned that his fellow members on the board agreed that I deserved some sort of reward for my bravery and enquired as to whether I had been a special Green Line Pass to travel from Staines. On being assured that this was the case he went on to say that I was being paid and would not have to work that day so the rest of the day was my own and I was free to use the Pass and go wherever I liked on the Green Lines for the rest of the day! Somehow I managed to keep a straight face while thanking him and leaving the office only to collapse into a fit of giggles on emerging into Oxford Circus. Passers-by must have thought I was crazy but the thought of rewarding a Green Line conductor with a free pass to travel round for a day was really rather comical. After spending eight hours every working day doing just that the last thing I wanted on my day off was a Green Line ride! Instead I returned, mostly by Underground, to Hounslow and then bus to Staines — it was quicker that way! Within an hour of leaving London I was handing in the special pass and telling my mates about the interview. I am certain that at least half of them believed I was making it all up but an official report came back to the Chief Inspector the following week to verify what I had said. I’m still laughing!

For some reason the incidents I remember on the 725 road are almost all linked to bad weather conditions; heavy fogs between Bromley and Crayford, deep snow between Dartford and Gravesend and a torrential downpour that flooded Crayford for a depth of four feet and held us up for several hours. As the coaches were heated we rarely wore overcoats and a sudden fog would mean the conductor leaning out of the open door to keep an eye on the kerb and guide the driver along the road. Not as bad as walking in front of the tram with a flare perhaps but a cold and miserable duty when you were twenty miles from home and shivering in a summer uniform, so I was somewhat less than delighted when I was approached by a lady passenger warmly clad in a fur coat and gloves who complained of the draught caused by the open door and couldn’t we go a bit faster as she didn’t want to be late at the Bridge Club! This thoughtless remark left me speechless — but not so my driver, however — he brought the coach to a halt, closed the door and climbed out of the driving seat, “Here you are, ducks,” he said, holding the door to the cab open, “There’s a nice heater in there to keep your feet warm — see if you can get us there any quicker!” Without another word the irate passenger meekly returned to her seat and we proceeded on our way.

We dreaded deep snow, especially between Dartford and Gravesend. There were several gravel pits some ten feet or so from the road with only a frail wire fence between the coach and a sheer drop of sixty feet or more. No matter how slowly and carefully the coach was driven there was always the danger of a heavy lorry skidding into us and sending us over the top. I suppose the sand and gravel lorry drivers were on piecework — they always seemed to be driving like maniacs on that road no matter what the weather was like. One of our coaches did bring the wire down once but, mercifully, came to a halt a bare eighteen inches from the edge.

In a heavy downpour one day, on a narrow winding country lane between Chislehurst and Sidcup, we were overtaken by a car. Spotting another car coming round the bend in the opposite direction, the lady driver cut in front of us very sharply and my driver had to brake very quickly in a vain attempt to avoid hitting her car, the front of the coach catching the tail light of the car as it swerved in front of us. Our relief, that the accident was nothing more than a broken taillight, was very short lived. Those old RF coaches were notorious for vicious back-wheel skids and this one was no exception — the back came round right in the path of the oncoming car, crushing the bonnet and offside wheel and smashing the windscreen. By some miracle, the driver was unhurt but absolutely furious — the car was only three days old and looked a total wreck. Climbing across the passenger seat, he charged down the road towards the lady driver, by now out of her car, waving her hands in the air and in tears on surveying the damage she had caused. She looked so pathetic and apologetic that the poor man stopped shouting and swearing and ended up putting an arm round her and supplying a large white handkerchief to dry her tears!

Of course, all accidents have to be fully reported on the appropriate form at the conclusion of the day’s work, in the crew’s own time, and all accidents are entered on the driver’s record should London Transport decide that their driver was in the wrong. Despite a letter of abject apology from the lady driver and another from the driver of the wrecked car stating that, in his opinion, the accident involving his own car was totally unavoidable; my driver was held to blame on two counts: 1) He was too close to the car in front and 2) He had been trained on the skid patch at Chiswick on how to control a skid and was, therefore, to blame for damaging the other car! In vain, he protested that all skid patch training was with a double deck bus on an enormous square half the size of a football pitch — whereas the accident involved an RF coach on a narrow country lane. His appeal was dismissed, he lost a day’s pay and the accident was entered on his record sheet.

I suppose the reason behind such harsh judgements is to keep the drivers alert to possible accident situations in future, though it frequently results in a driver giving notice and leaving the job. There is no doubt that London Transport employs some of the finest drivers in the world as a result of such high standards.

I would have been about three years of age when this happened.
During raids and alerts, my grandmother would sit in my bedroom until I had fallen asleep. We lived in West London, and it never seemed to be worthwhile to go to the shelter during raids, so I slept in my bedroom. On this occasion, my grandmother had stayed with me until I fell asleep. I do remember vague memories of searhlights, and the noise of the Anti aircraft batteries firing from Ravenscourt Park some distance away.
I awoke some time after the raid had finished. I lay awake listening to rather strange noses coming from outside of my bedroom, but within the house. I got up out of bed, opened the bedroom door and walked onto the landing. There in the stair well, up and down the stairs, numbering at least between fifteen and twenty, were smoke-blackened exhasuted filthy London firemen. They had fought the fires from the houses up the street, set alight by incendiaries, and my mother and grand-mother were busy giving them tea, cigarrettes and whisky. They were still dressed in their thigh boots, and protective clothing, wet and dirty with the effects of the fires. I will never forget the strained haunted look on their faces, before my mother came over, and put me gently but firmly back into bed. I fell asleep, and the next day with great excitement saw the results of enemy action.

This story was submitted to the People’s War website by Marie on behalf of John and has been added to the site with his permission. John fully understand the site’s terms and conditions.

In 1943 a call went out for young men to train as railway shunters on the mainland. I volunteered and within a few weeks I was sent to the marshalling yard at Feltham in Middlesex. The size of the place was an eye-opener — it had 32 miles of track and sidings and a fleet of nearly 100 steam locomotives. I was given lodgings with the family of one of the yard foreman, gave my ration book to his wife and then had 2 days to look round and familiarise myself with the yard and the workings of this vast layout. After another couple of days to learn the rudiments of loose shunting, I was assigned to a shunting gang which consisted of two class three shunters and one class one shunter who was in charge. The class Three shunters were, depending on their knowledge, either working the hand points or unhooking the wagons to get them marshalled in station order. You had to do a lot of running to keep up with the work and I was put on the shunting pole unhooking the wagons and working twelve hour shifts. When I started in this gang I was told how the previous shunter had had a very serious accident and had both his legs amputated below the knee which wasn’t the kind of thing I needed to hear. There were a lot of points that needed to be stepped over — on the night shift with restricted lighting this was difficult and made even worse by air raids when all the lights would go out but we had to carry on working until the German bombers went over when we would go for shelter, or when the nearby anti-aircraft guns started firing and shrapnel would rain down like confetti.

After working twelve hour shifts I would arrive at my lodgings very tired and filthy so would wash and clean up, have my meal and then go straight to my room and bed. One evening I was woken up by the husband banging on my door — the Germans had been dropping bombs on a nearby depot but some had started landing on the roofs of the local houses and everyone was outside with ladders and rakes getting these incendiary bombs down onto the ground so they could be covered up with sand and earth which would put the flames out. And until I was woken up, I hadn’t heard a thing!

As winter fell shunting became even worse — we now had to contend with the black-out, frost, snow and ice underfoot and above all the London smog which sometimes lasted days. We had to carry out the flat shunting using whistle codes so the driver knew to pull up, set back or stop. Even so, there were derailments and collisions everytime the smog came down, and the freight trains leaving the yard were hours late. As these had to be slotted into the mainline passenger train service — with 4 trains an hour into waterloo and 4 trains an hour out, the signalman controlling all this mayhem had quite a job.

Early in 1944 the freight traffic started to increase more than ever — this was for D-Day, but of course we didn’t know it at the time. Because of shunting staff shortage I only got one Sunday off in five, when I would attempt to visit my family on the IOW. I would get away late Saturday afternoon and be back on Monday. This worked well until Saturday 4th June 1944 when I arrived at Portsmouth harbour to find that the paddle steamer boat service to Ryde had been suspended — the only boat to the IOW was the Portsmouth to Fishbourne car ferry and there were no more of them until Sunday morning. I went back to Portsmouth Town station, found somewhere to get a sandwich and a cup of tea and then saw the Station Forman and told him I couldn’t get home. He fixed it up for me to sleep in the compartment of an electric train and for someone to give me a call in time for the first car ferry. As this ferry came out of the harbour I saw rows and rows of ships large and small stretching out as far as the eye could see. The weather was terrible and I felt so sorry for all the soldiers being tossed about in the flat bottomed landing craft by the very rough sea. When the ferry landed, I got the bus home to Gunville and explained to my mother what had happened, had a meal and then had to go back to work. I heard that the invasion of Europe had started and turned up at the yard to find they were looking for volunteers to go as shunters in Southampton Docks to help deal with invasion traffic. I volunteered straight away and on D-Day plus seven, I was on my way. I had to report to the Dock Superintendant’s Office traffic Section — a large building in the old docks facing Canute Road. I was given my lodgings address and told to wait for the Superintendant — he noticed straight away that I didn’t have a London accent and his face lit up when I told him I was from the IOW. He’d been brought up in Alverstone which was the last station I worked at before I went to London. By now he’d obviously formed his opinion of me and he said “I know you’re very young, but if I offered you a Head Shunters job do you think you could do it?” I said I would give it a jolly good try and he sent me to the New Docks as the track layout was a lot easier to learn than at the Old Docks.

The next morning I reported to the New Dock Inspector and was assigned to a Head Shunter so I could start learning the track layout for the whole of the New Dock area. It was no easy task, but after nearly two weeks learning on different shifts I said I was ready to take over with my own engine. This job turned out to be one of the greatest experiences of my career. I had to deal with trains of petrol in jerricans, these had to be shunted out from the sidings, taken across the roadway and pushed onto the dockside at berths 107 and 108 to be loaded onto pallets and hoisted on board the ships. Ammunition was loaded at 101 and 102 berths, and things like large tents, nissen huts, picks, shovels etc were moved from berth 103 to 106. We also had three ambulance trains fully manned and ready to go 24 hours a day. Two of these trains were American and one of British medical staff, and whenever a hospital ship was due to arrive at the Old Docks, the New Docks shunters would have to pull these trains out of the sheds and over the Town Quay, threading your way between pedestrians and motor traffic, and all the vehicles that were parked too close to the railway lines that would mean you had to stop, find the driver and get them to move it so you could carry on. Some days there were many of these trips!

By now I had settled into my lodgings — the front bedroom and a small sitting room of a Victorian house in Winchester Road — and I persuaded the landlady to take in another shunter so I had some company when off duty. Shunters were allowed extra cheese rations and this pleased her, but not us — nearly every day we had cheese in our sandwiches! So being on a 12 hour shift I sometimes went into the Dockers Canteen where the food was basic but filling, and when off duty I went to the Government run British Restaurant serving wartime meals. This restaurant was on a bomb site in the High Street, Above Bar. But everywhere you looked there were bomb damaged buildings, especially in the Old Docks and surrounding areas. We were now getting Allied troops back from France, the first lot I can remember were the American Rangers from Normandy. They had taken awful punishment and lost a lot of men trying to get a foothold on “Omaha” beach landing. After some very severe fighting they had managed to advance inland, and now after a few weeks they were relieved and came back to England. They were being sent to London for Rest and Relaxation. The first train to leave with these bomb-happy troops kept getting stopped by some of them pulling the emergency cord and it took many stops and starts just to get to the Millbrook exit onto the mainline. The train driver and guard asked the Docks Traffic Inspector to get the officer in charge to stop the cord pulling or the train would not go any further as it would be a hazard to other trains on the mainline. Sure enough, that put a stop to all thr trouble!

Just outside No 8 gate, on spare ground sloping down towards the sea, the Americans had built a concrete hard to load tanks and troops. These large boats were departing one after another, and then after a few weeks the flow of men and tanks got less. They then laid temporary railway tracks down the hard and started loading railway freight vehicles. These had arrived as a kit of parts in large crates and were tested and assembled on spare land at the Millbrook end of the docks and then pulled down to Number 8 gate and pushed onboard. The track had to be flexible in places to compensate for high and low tide and some derailments did occur but a crane was kept on stand-by to deal with these. The boats started coming back full of German P.O.Ws instead of being empty. They were unloaded and marched to a very large compound of huts, and barbed wire which had been used by the Allied Troops days before D-Day. There they were deloused and then loaded back onto trains to be taken to Kempton Park Race Course or Newbury Race Course under a military escort to await dispersal to proper P.O.W. camps.

Amongst all of this work, we also had traders inside the docks who needed their wagons to come and go. Hibberts had wagons full of lager from Alloa in Scotland — it was bottled and ready to go onto ships; Cadburys had ships chocolate and cocoa arriving daily; there was Ranks Flour Mill supplies and Myers Timber Merchants receiving materials, plus coal for the coal fired ships, so we were kept very busy.

I remember receiving a letter from my mother early in 1945 with some bad news, our village had lost another young man, John Caute, who’d been a school friend of mine. He was serving in the “Royal Tank Corps” and had been killed crossing the Rhine River. There’s a plaque to his memory in the village church at Godshill where he was an altar boy.

V.E. Day arrived and I remember all the ships in the port of Southampton sounding the morse code V on their sirens and the church bells rang for hours, no black out restrictions anymore and the pubs were full that evening. The “Channel island” boat service started up taking refugees and supplies back with them. The Queen Mary came back into Southampton and the Queen Elizabeth came to Southampton for the first time since she was built. They were both still in wartime grey paint and put into service repatriating American troops — if memory serves correctly they took 10,000 troops at a time. Later the Queen Mary had to go into dry dock to have all the barnacles and weed removed from her her bottom as it was affecting her speed and steerage — I was one of the shunters who took away the loaded wagons of evil smelling scarpings. I made friends with the dry dock forman and he took me down the stairway to the bottom of the dock so I could see just how big she was, and the size of her proppellors and rudders. It was quite an experience! Then in 1946 I finished my time at Southampton Docks and was sent back to Feltham Marshalling Yard to become a train despatcher.

By Jaon Rhodes (née Tooley):
Early September 1944, I was in the Middlesex Hospital at Isleworth, awaiting the birth of my first child. During the air raids we were told NOT to get out of our beds, but to pull our meal trolleys up over our heads, then get under the bedclothes.

A flying bomb (buzz bomb) dropped in the hospital grounds and blew all the windows in! None of us were hurt. One lady had hysterics, but only three went into labour, which surprised the doctors.

By 10 September the V2 rockets were arriving. They travelled faster than sound and as they exploded, the sound arrived and the noise was terrifying.

The Atlantic

By now we were well into the open ocean and meeting with the full strength of the Atlantic swell. The ungainly shape of the carrier tilted first this way - and then that - in a long rhythm of pitching and rolling quite different from the Manchester’s responses to movement caused by the sea. The Victorious, with a displacement of about 22,000 tons, rode the swell heavily, ponderously. It was while I was peeling spuds, perched in a kind of balcony projecting from the ship's side about half way between the waterline and the flight deck, that I first realised how slow and extensive was the ship's motion.

The sequence tended to be like this. For ten or fifteen seconds we would be almost on an even keel, as the carrier moved along the line of a trough between two swells, two or three hundred yards apart. As the next swell, always from the west, approached the vessel, she would begin to heel to starboard, and the water surface in front of my balcony would come nearer as I was tilted over more and more towards it. For a moment or two I would be struggling to hold myself on my stool, my feet strongly braced against stanchions at the balcony edge, as I peered down into the blue-black waters only about fifteen feet below. Then the swell would lift the great mass of the carrier on its shoulders, and pass underneath it. The Victorious would begin to right herself, come back to vertical, and then, as she slid down the back of the swell, roll slowly over to port. Now I would be raised on my balcony sixty or seventy feet above the water, and look out into the sky, or across at one of our escorting destroyers rolling and butting her way through configurations of minor waves that complicated the overall pattern of the swell. The huge mass would finally smash down into the next trough, and then sluggishly right herself, before running on an even keel for a while and then recommencing the same sequence.
As I was out in the open air, and on the lee side of the vessel, I was able to withstand this motion better than I had feared. I think I vomited briefly a couple of times, and then learnt how to adjust my breathing to counteract the effect of the roll, taking in air as she fell away under me, and expelling it steadily as she rose. I found it easier to stand than sit, for then I could tilt my body against the ship and remain more or less upright. So I placed my two buckets between my feet - one bucket with the unpeeled spuds in, the other with rinsing water and peelings in it. Facing forward to help me gauge the ship’s movement by the swinging of the bows, I did my share of the work as a scullion, becoming increasingly proficient at it.

Another skill I acquired was the art of going up and downstairs in heavy weather. I learnt that it was a pointless expenditure of effort to try to climb up the metal stairs of a companionway when the deck was rising, for my body felt twice as heavy as normal, and each step was heavy labour. If I waited till the deck was dropping away, all I had to do was kick my feet in and out smartly as the near vertical stairway feel away below me, and run my hand up the chain at the side to steady myself - and in a trice I would reach the top. The same trick worked in reverse for descending: wait for the ship to be rising under me, and kick my feet in and out as the ladder passed by - and I was at the bottom. In each case I had hardly moved through the air: the ship had changed her position in respect of mine.

Provided the weather wasn't too rough, we were allowed on the flight deck, with lifejackets on. I felt strangely exposed to be walking on that tilting platform, without any guardrail protection at the edge. In sunny spells Coates and I, with others from the fo'c'sle messes on the Manchester, would promenade up and down the length of the deck. In part this was simply for exercise - the Navy made a virtue of moving your bowels once a day - but it was also to give ourselves the space to move more freely than we could between decks, as well as to chat and chaff each other the meanwhile. Some bravado was also involved, for some of us would see how close we dared go aft to the stern edge of the flight deck. There the heaving and movement was accentuated, and staring down into the heaving swell and the ship's wake could induce a sense of vertigo and make you feel as if you were about to be pitched overboard into those powerful waves.

The further north we went, the fewer were the sailors walking the windy flight deck, and the more were the rumours passed around about which port we were making for. Liverpool, said some, but Glasgow seemed more likely. Crewmen of the Victorious believed she was due for repair, which increased speculation, but did not point clearly to where survivors would be disembarked — which was all that interested the sailors in transit. But day after day went by without any land heaving into sight. We knew from the sun we were travelling east, and should therefore see something soon.

When at last the cry went up, we all rushed up on to the flight deck, hunching our shoulders and clustering together against the wind. On our starboard bow was a great green headland, with one whitewashed lighthouse and a small cottage nearby. Surely we had seen that before ...
'It's Cape Wrath!' shouted one of the Manchester men. 'Back to bloody Scapa then!'
There was a groan of disappointment. Rumours flew about wildly: we were going into Scapa to be kitted out on Hoy, and then kept ashore there to await posting to another ship; we were to be transferred to a troop carrier and taken down to Glasgow … But everyone was proved wrong when the Victorious steamed on the whole night. Next morning we were still making way; land lay on our right hand, but the sun told us we were now moving south. Scotland's east coast! This was confirmed when around midday we found ourselves passing Aberdeen, identified by a sailor whose home was in that city. I had been on deck since mid-morning, for the chance to see more of the coastline of Britain was something I didn’t want to miss. Also I was aware that mines might have been sown by an enemy submarine in what was supposed to be a swept channel, and I did not want to be trapped below decks when we were so close to safety.

Home

Around tea-time we anchored off a port. The ship's tannoy told all survivors to gather in the aircraft hangar to await transfer ashore to Arbroath, where a train was said to be ready to take us further south. We were taken away in barges hauled by tugs, and made fast alongside a simple jetty. Dry land again underfoot, and Britain: I had made it. The adventure was complete. But there were no welcoming bands to parade us victoriously into the town: only surly Petty Officers dragooning us into squads to be marched along the dockside and into a railway siding where a number of carriages were drawn up waiting. These looked as if they had been taken out of some dusty storage shed. As we clambered up into them from ground level, we found that we would have to travel four a side, crammed together into the space meant for three. Once we had got in, the doors were locked on us; the temptation might be too great for some to make a break, especially as none of us had any movement papers and thus there was no efficient means of checking on us. So we waited, and waited, until at last an engine came and coupled up and slowly began easing us out of that siding.

The journey south had begun, but we found ourselves stopping frequently, for we were a special train and had to fit into the gaps between scheduled services. Several times we were shoved into a siding to let other trains pass; as they did so, we jeered at the driver and passengers, shouting:
'Yaah! Civvies!'
'There's a war on — ain’t you heard?'
The passengers looked back in alarm to see so many ruffianly figures hanging out of the railway carriage windows, only half dressed as seamen. Then we would hear the whistle from our own engine and it would reluctantly puff and sigh and clank, as it again took the strain of the old coaches and their charge of ragamuffin sailors.
We noticed too that there was no question of pausing at any station. We trailed through Perth and then Stirling, many of us casting longing eyes at the railway buffet. The vision of tea and buns grew gradually into images of much more substantial meals, as we approached the border and the evening lengthened into night. Our headway was still desperately slow, and hunger was becoming a major concern; thirst too.

But the train merely dragged on, southwards. Soon sailors were spreading themselves out on the floor for the night. This move, once begun, spread so swiftly that the only bit of flooring I could find was immediately outside a toilet. Throughout the night, as the train clanked on and stopped and started again, men stepped over me, or in their half-awake condition stubbed their toes against me, or kicked me in anger at being in their way. They seemed to come every few minutes to use the loo. By morning I was stiff and bruised, hungry and very thirsty. My tongue was thick and furred, and I felt that the train was some kind of prison, out of which I might never be allowed. We could be shunted into a siding somewhere, and forgotten. Then we would climb out through the windows, I reasoned, and all go absent without leave, or AWOL.

Nevertheless we must have made considerable headway during the night hours. By daylight names on hoardings gave clues that we must by now be somewhere in the home counties and apparently making for London. The mood in the train, however, was becoming quite rebellious, with ugly outbursts of temper between men. We had had nothing to eat or drink since late afternoon in Arbroath. As we shuffled into the outskirts of London around eleven in the morning, we hung out of the windows, trying to attract attention from anyone we could see. At windows of three-storey houses backing onto the tracks women appeared, roused by our shouting:
'How about a cup o’ char, then, love?'
'Just throw us down yer teapot, then!'
'Got a crust o’ bread for a shipwrecked sailor?'

Finally we pulled in at a derelict-looking station somewhere in the Willesden area. There was no-one about but Petty Officers, equipped with keys to unlock the carriage doors.
'Out yer get, then. Look smart! Fall in on the platform!'
Stiff and famished, we stretched our limbs at last in the unwonted space of the platform, ignoring the harrying of the Petty Officers. 'How about some grub, then, Chief?'
'Some char - we ain't drunk since yesterday, not a drop!'
The PO’s looked incredulously at us. It was clear they had no idea what our journey had been like. It soon came out that they had simply been told to stand by for survivors who needed re-kitting. The sailors, especially the older hands, lost no time in telling the PO’s just what the score was, and all pretence of trying to discipline us into three ranks disappeared.

Not far from me a PO was speaking to a group of sailors.
'All the gen we got was to take you from the station to the pusser's stores - that's nearby, only a few hundred yards down the road - and get you kitted out.'
'They got a canteen there, then?'
'Yeah, or a NAAFI?'
The PO hung his head. 'Not that I've seen.'
'Gawd Christ!'
'Come back from the Med, and this is the way they treat yer!'
By now sailors were breaking off here and there and going to the station toilet, where some cold taps had been found.
'Once we're kitted out,' a Leading Seaman asked, ‘what then?'
'You get a pass for indefinite leave home,' replied the PO.
There was a gasp of satisfaction. 'Home leave!'
'What are we waiting for!'
'Come on - fall in then!'
'The sooner the kitting out's done, we can all get away!'
'Roll on six o' bleedin’ clock!'
'I can just feel that pint goin' down me throat!'

Within minutes we were walking, not marching, along a drab back street of London in some industrial zone, and turned in to a large warehouse. There we shed our survivors' garments (though I kept the paint-stained overalls as a kind of memento of the Manchester) and were issued with the full set of clothing and equipment, just as had happened on my second day in Collingwood. In the warmth of late August we had to try on all the articles to get the right size. But this time the men behind the counter couldn't bully us as they had when we were raw recruits. It was we who did the choosing, and satisfied ourselves that we were getting what suited us. Yet the boots were stiff and squeaked as I walked; the socks were too thick for summer wear; the cap was stubbornly round and would not yield easily to my attempts at wrestling its brim into the shape of my head. The kitbag, filled with all the bits and pieces, was heavy and lumpy. Bearing it on my shoulder, and wearing full uniform for the first time since leaving Scapa for the Med, I moved through to the pay office, was issued with a fresh identity card - retaining my Official Number of PJX 294798 - and paid arrears for July and August, the sum being entered in a new paybook. Last of all I got a travel warrant for the underground journey to Turnham Green station, and a pass saying 'On indefinite leave'.

I must have had a cup of tea and a bun at a station somewhere; I have a feeling I passed through King's Cross. That would have meant taking the tube to Hammersmith, and then the familiar District Line train passing through Ravenscourt Park - a glimpse of Latymer, my old school - and of Stamford Brook — crossing the bridge under which I used to walk as a schoolboy every morning and evening - and so to Turnham Green.
It felt strange to be carrying a whole kitbag down the station stairs, so familiar from my adolescence, and turning into Bedford Park again. I had forgotten my parents' new address; all I remembered was that it was close to Mrs Brunsden's house. I recalled that this was 13 Fairfax Road, from visits paid there in the mid-1930s. So I rang the bell.
Mrs Brunsden - long nose, enormous spectacles, tall and bony - opened the door, and gasped.
'Hallo, Mrs Brunsden. I'm looking for my parents' house.'
'Along there,' she managed to say, scarcely able to find her voice at the shock of seeing me suddenly at the door, and in sailor's uniform. 'Nineteen.'
'Thank you.' She stood there, stupefied, so I went down the path and shut the gate behind me, nodding a goodbye to her.

Strangely enough I can hardly remember anything of the moment of home-coming itself. I have the impression that it was my sister who opened the door, and on seeing me whooped for joy. But no memory remains of how my parents responded to my reappearance. I know that they had heard that the Manchester had been lost, and that most of the crew had made their way into internment in North Africa; I am not sure any information had been given about survivors getting back to Britain.

I reached home late in August. The Manchester had been torpedoed on the 13th of that month, and so the journey back must have taken about a fortnight. I remember telling them about the exploits we had been through, and feeling proud to have covered already both the Arctic and the Med. But it felt very strange to be back in Chiswick, where I had spent my early teens in another house, and living again for a while with my father and mother, now a little aged, but still basically unchanged.

At Appleton where a collection of G.U.C.C. boats. "Beer" said Kit some were loading, others just waiting. Boater youths, brown or red faced, mending ropes, or bailing water, tending to give us quiet looks. The women were chattier, mopping the roofs of their cabins or scrubbing the woodwork. Strong and stocky, most of them with greasy hair, brown skins and brown eyes. Coloured scarves worn three comer ways round their heads, blouses and skirts. None in slacks. The older women in dark clothes, all with aprons and busy. Children in most of the hatches, dirty and scruffy most of them with torn clothes and unwashed faces. But finding ourselves, how difficult it was to keep clean, we decided one could never tell, unless at very close quarters if it was one weeks dirt or merely the accumulation of one day! We went on and on and after about ten hours travelling drew towards the Hayes Depot. The huge silver gasometer marking it with an unmistakable beacon in the evening light. " Breast up, ready to tie before the bridge and then go round to the right" said Kit." All loaded boats tie there on the way up country". Sound your horn very well before the bridge and sweep round, keeping straight in the centre of the Cut till your stern will swing clear of the bridge hole. Then go full ahead and put all your weight on the tiller. Miranda took one of the forty-foot shaft and stood poised on the bows, ready to give an extra heave if there were boats tied on the bend. We crept through, our engine beating gently, our stern swung clear and the engine roared into full acceleration, a fountain of white water burst from her stern, the full seventy foot of our boats pivoted slowly round. Miranda laid down her shaft and seized a rope to tie instead, the watching mechanics and boaters went on with their jobs. "Very nice" said Kit. And we all swelled unintentionally with pride. Because the corner is more than a right angle and only slightly over a boat length in width and for all that the Cut runs straight past the bridge on down to Brentford, there is very little room for untidy parlour tricks. So we tied up and ate our supper we lay next to Rosie someone and her husband a two handed pair of spotless cleanliness and trim beauty (both boats and people); and stern to stern with Dickie Boswell and his wife Lu. They were delightful, full of fun; both short and stocky, he was of Romany stock and looked it with a smiling cheerful face and an endless flow of conversation. Lu was plump and fair of face with pure platinum blonde hair, bleached to a gold not from a bottle, tied roughly back from her shinning rosy cheeks. They had three flaxen haired children - hopelessly dirty and full of beans and all under five. They knew Kit very well and talked across the stern of the two boats while we ate supper sky larking between each other like a couple of kids. Kay, who was feeling unappreciative, went off for her beer. I did some washing, then wrote to the gang, one of whom had sent me a parcel. I stretched myself in the last rays of the sun and eyed my dirty aching limbs. Must wash. But to watch the sunset behind the factory buildings was so much more exciting and to listen to Lu's shrill voice putting the kids to bed, and Dickey's backchat from the motor cabin where he was washing with noises like grampus. Further down the lay-by someone was fiddling with their engine the sound rose and faded away repeatedly in the quivering air. The boats bobbed gently as a pair of "Fellows" went down to the docks loaded. Taking the wide sweep of the bend under the bridge easily and confidently. The man on the motor going full ahead to pull his butty round and his stalwart daughter, her hair in curlers, rowing her tiller frantically and making it with apparently perfect judgement. Lu shouted and the girl yelled back resting on her tiller as she disappeared beneath the bridge. "Yes" thought I. "This is the life" and went happily to wash. Later on Dickey played a mandolin to lull the children to sleep and sang in a rich deep voice with Lu's shrill treble joining in occasionally. Kay landed on the roof with a thump and came in a flaming temper. "Christ! What a row - Never get any rest with those people! Ghastly tied stern to stern with anyone - oh God!" Her remarks subsided in bubbles and she washed vigorously, rolling herself up in her blanket after and curling up "Can't stand it - oh Christ! Too hot with the doors shut", Slam! Slam! Went the doors and some vibrant remarks went out into the now quietening summer night. Peace settled gently down and the world went to sleep. I felt disloyal to Kay who I liked but wished Dickey had gone on singing but didn't have long to wish it in. The next day we went north. I felt like the first adventurer. At first everything was silver in the sunshine. Cowley Bridge was just like a painting by Cotman - a little white stone bridge, still reflections, vast tall beeches towering above it -- Cowley Lock is lovely too. On, up the wide stretches of canal, everything misty in the sun. The same routine for locks. We did three locks each. Lock wheeling or getting the locks ready motor and butty. I learnt to take the motor in very gently, always on the right, touch the wall just beyond the gate, going into neutral as one touched; and then as ones boat straightened out reverse then the instant she came to rest or touched the sill forward gear to prevent her slipping out releasing the butty off the towrope just as one goes in. The butty was the same drill with the addition of the towrope. A new and fright some thing controlled entirely from the butty. The length of rope is coiled neatly into the hatches behind one and runs over a stud round which it is twisted; along the length of the boat through "running blocks" to the mast where it passes through a shackle tied to the mast and lies neatly down the side of the sheets when not in use. From there it is seized by the motor and affixed to the stud as the motor goes out of the lock. The rope is held by the butty steerer who pays it out to the required length and then crosses the rope rapidly round the stud and checks it; with a special tie when this is achieved. As one has at the same time to steer, and we were constantly meeting boats coming down, waiting outside the locks to hustle us out" Life was an agony of anxiety! Kit took me lock wheeling on bikes, we tore along a towpath which was narrow and bumpy and seemed to have been chewed by a crocodile. Fishermen, who, as it was Sunday and late summer were beginning to appear in their hundreds, eyed us and our boats with dislike or shouted cheery remarks at us. Kit took very little notice and feeling much like Alice and the Red Queen (except that we were getting somewhere fast), I tore along behind her. One false move and it was the thorn hedge or the Cut. There was no time to be unable to crank those blasted paddles up now and up they went, slowly at first and then more easily. My arms ached and the sun got hotter and hotter. We climbed through the stately Georgian beauty of Casioberry Park and the people got denser and denser, Watford, Cassy Bridge, Iron Bridge - two hellish bends we didn't do too well, Lady Capels, Hunton Bridge and chain, Ricky, Black Lock, Cowley and Denham Deep were past history and might have happened a thousand years ago instead of this morning. The thicker the people, the more furious Kit got and the clumsier we became in our mutual anxiety to do our best. We moved babies off checking stumps-- "Oh! Do you mind -- your little boys- I’ve got to stop this boat!!" "Can you get away from the gates they open inwards you see?" We had to keep kids away from the paddles in case the checking tongue of steel slipped and someone's windless flew to do damage amongst the crowd. Miranda gave a sudden laugh and said "Fantastic isn't it!". Her fisherman's hat on the back of her head and her orange Breton fisherman's jerkin wide at the neck - a pair of grey flannels and sandals. I suddenly realised we did look odd ourselves, our faces streaming, our weird assortment of clothes. Kay became sophisticated and spoke politely to people. Miranda's eyes laughed and her cultured accents cleared little Ernie and Jim more quickly than ever we could. Kay looked like something from Hollywood her red gold hair shinning in the sun - her thin clinging shirt and slacks and graceful figure. I was just hot. We drank deeply between locks, no rest all day, except for five minutes on the roof now and then. Kit lock wheeled for us for necessity demanded a bucket. By night, when we tied up at seven, we were dead. "Fishery" half way to Iring Summit. A lock between a graceful white stone bridge with a Georgian balustrade. A good pub. We washed, Kay went for a drink with Kit - I envied her energy and the pub but I didn't like beer and I vaguely disapproved of women drinking, so I ate, read, ached and went to sleep. I wondered what Miranda did in a vague way but very vaguely. The next day was much the same only by the afternoon we reached "The Cow Roast" and the Summit. A toothless lock keeper like a hen checked us and gauged us and we realised that we'd finished the first upgrade of forty-four locks from London. We went swinging easily on the longer snubber across Tring Summit and having being told at the Cow Roast that we should be "Locked up" at Mathas owing to water shortage - so we tied up at four pm. Kay and I ate enormously and planned great washes. I had mine first and sat on the deck, she splashed and I drew a couple of "Barlows" that had tied up behind us. Lovely they are, much lighter than G.D.C.C. boats in frame with "Bologna" engines. They have, I think the most fascinating beat on the Cut, uneven and exciting with a sort of wild natural rhythm about it! Wow! They are painted very daintily with a white strip round the bows and stern, gay bunches of flowers to end and edge it. On their deck hatch they have a scarlet heart on a white ground and the doors to their cabins are painted traditionally with roses and castles; so are their water cans and Arn bowls. By the type of painting on these articles you can tell where they come from. Whether it be Braunston yards - which favour a dark green ground and roses and castles or Bedworth which have a lighter more orange and yellow flowery style. There is yet another style of painting from Messrs Harvey-Taylor's yard at Leyton Buzzard. I think they are a subsidiary to Nurses at Braunstone and as such not important, although their boats have very nice castles painted on the side of their cabins. Still so have "Fellows". Next day in a cold white mist we went down Mathas. The butty, one checked going into the lock but didn't tie up, it had an irritating thumb string to remember which was attached to a minute steel thumb under the gate and with which one stopped the butty swinging out of the lock with the motor, the moment the gates opened. Irritating because it entailed having to leave it on till the toe rope was picked up and flip it off in time to deal with paying out the towrope! There were fun and games until we learnt how to do it! We had to keep the butty "Up" near the front of the lock and see her "Elum" didn't sink onto the sill. She was then taken back on a string by the motor as soon as the sill became visible, dropped and picked up by the towrope. The white mist, the pair behind, the fact there was a pair waiting for us at every lock. That bloody thumb string was the final straw. Failure to deal with it at exactly the right moment meant both boats sailed out breasted and in short pounds it was to hard to get them apart in time to get round and in the next lock. The boaters were kindly, most of them knew Kit well and were ready for the strange things her crew might do. The days past rapidly and peacefully enough. We learnt our muscles were getting stronger and life wasn't quite such a rush. Beyond Mathas, the locks stretch on over rich farmland flat on either side - the locks every half mile or so. The harvest was rich that year and I remember lock wheeling, the scent of the corn making the keen air of the heights sweet and gazing enthralled at the golden land, chequered with sheaves that stretched away on either side. An occasional green stretch dotted with black and white cattle to break the monotony. The winding blue ribbon of canal with its white concrete edges broken by tall rustling bunches of reeds. The grey house of a lockkeeper standing over the black and white gates of the lock. Or an occasional warm red brick farmhouse sheltered by haystacks and tall poplars, as the only habitations in sight. Little white bridges, clumps of willows as we came down to Leighton Buzzard and even richer, greener cattle land stretching away to the little red brick town. Silent grey herons that stand rigid, ugly and yet graceful between the reeds. Busy little moorhens bustling like agitated bees in and out of the dark overhanging banks and clucking with irritation at the intrusion of Battersea's vast bulk. Past Harry Taylor’s yards, an untidy jumble of sheds with a boat on the stocks; a few dirty boats haphazardly tied beyond. Round the sharp bends of Leighton, under the bridge with the little straight silver horn sounding shrilly to warn other boats of our coming and people gazing curiously down. Through the Jackdaw pound noted for its bends, bad muddy stretches and blind bridges. Long pounds now with time to check our stores, tidy the cabins and polish our brass-Stoke Hammond-Talbot, Fenny. Fenny with the pub that is every boater’s store where one does all ones shopping- and buys stacks of tinned milk. Water gauging and a revolting man for a lockkeeper. Fenny is quite a place. We spent a night there and I thought of the holiday camp where the College was spending its holiday-harvesting. Somehow the idea didn't fit, although I found out later they were much nearer than I thought, and I regretted it promptly. From Fenny there is a six-hour pound to Stoke Bruene. Seven uphill locks with a lockkeeper who has no teeth-watery blue eyes ~d a soft spot for Kay. Miranda refers to him as "that old horny goat ". An exquisitely pretty village with a pub, a church, poplars, a row of cottages in grey stone. The last lock being tucked inconveniently, as locks go, under a bridge, we stop there and I am told of Sister Mary, who is to tie a finger Miranda has damaged. Her father was a Cut doctor and left a bequest in his will for Mary to look after the boaters which she did to the extent of always being dressed like a Commandant with a white headdress. She was a legend from one end of the Cut to the other. Her efficiency was doubted as Miranda came back from her visit startlingly arrayed in a sling and instructions not to use the hand for three days. "Wait till we are through the tunnel" said with a giggle, as Miranda announced her opinion of “this nonsense".

We set off on a long snubber, Kay on the motor, Miranda and I lying flat on the roof of the butty for my first tunnel-Blisworth-two miles long-just a rabbit hole in the steep green side of the hill. We put on our headlamps and go into the unfathomable darkness slowly, feeling our way down the right hand wall. The air goes damp and cold, the water sloshes and slaps, the walls shine with dampness. Drips hit me on the arms and legs at intervals. The engine makes a terrifying roar and one can hear crashes in the dark and see no motor at all. The crashes cease, an arc of light appears round our bows and curves across the roof. "Keep your bows in the centre and you will always be alright. If you see anything coming keep to the right and go slowly." The stern of the motor was now in being with Kay looking tense and never turning, steering carefully suddenly the engine roared into life and we seemed to fly through the narrow space. Kit remarked that if you tried to keep the butty in the centre it simply didn't and it was difficult to stop oneself over steering in a tunnel. We passed under a great funnel of light leading to the sky, "Look up" commanded Kit and I did.

On arriving at St Johns Wood, I reported to the duty N C O and he wrote my name down in the register. Then a Private took me to a billet, here I found another N C O, that had arrived earlier. We got talking, none of us knew each other. Then we were given some food to eat. None of us left the camp that evening. During the evening there were more N C O's and Privates arriving at our billet.
The next morning we were all paraded, and we were then informed that we had to do a six week refresher course. Over the next few weeks, we did all of the basic training such as rifle, map reading and everything that you learnt when you joined the Army.
After we had completed the training and passed out I had a weekend pass , which I used to go and visit my family. Then we were posted to other camps. Myself and eleven others were all posted to Hookwood in Surrey, which was a Royal Ordanance Store Depot. We unloaded all of our kit and was taken to the Dining room and given tea. The cook was A T S and there was five Italian Prisoners-of-War sitting at the top of the table and they were talking. Three of the N C O's went to the table and found out that they had been Prisoners-of-War in Italy. They could speak the language so they started speaking Italian, but two of them moved away and it nearly came to punch up, but it was the woman cook that stepped in to calm things down.
There were some Ordanance group also working there and also civilians work, we never saw much of the Captain. He was always with a A T S Driver. Nearby was an
R A F Aerodrome, which is now called Gatwick Airport. We spent our evening in the pub with the A T S. It was Christmas 1945 and we had leave. All of the N C O's had a chicken to take home for Christmas, but I cannot tell you how we won them?
On returning back from our Christmas leave, the N C O started to get demobbed at one or two at a time. I spoke to Captain Gardener about signing on for 2 years, that was 1946. As the N C O got demobbed, we had a party at the Pub. Next, the A T S returned to Guildford in Surrey to the A T S camp. The R A O C were to move to another camp. I was to take some stores from the Quarter Master's store and travel by road to Colchester in Essex. We arrived on the Tuesday afternoon and unloaded the stores. The Quarter Master Sergeant told us to put it into a large room and gave us the key. He then said that after we had finished doing this, to hand the key back to the storeman.
I was shown my billet and unpacked my kit. Then on the Wednesday I reported to the Quarter Master, he told me to lay out the stores to go to Hookwood for checking.
On Thursday afternoon I again reported to the Quarter Master, got ready to hand over but he said to leave it until the Friday. As the storeman had been working with me, we checked the stores together and he agreed that everything was in order and then signed the document. I also signed the document and handed the key to the storewoman. Next morning, the Quarter Master
said " I check the stores and then take them off your hands". At 10.00 a.m., the Quarter Master approached me stating that some stores were missing. I said to him "Bull, it was all present yesterday". he replied to me "Not now it isn't, then report the thief to the Company Commander"
I was told to report to office, Quarter Master was stating stores stolen. The Company Officer turned to me and said"What do you have to say?" I replied "All the stores were present and correct yesterday when I locked up" He then said "What proof have you?" I then handed him the C/O my document which had been signed by myself and the storeman. Also stated that they key had been handed to the storewoman. I then said " Call in the Special Police. The C/O replied "No need for that" That was the case closed and shut. Two months later, having gotten to know the other stores across the way, they told me "You know those stores that you had lost earlier, they were in our stores. I asked them who had brought them to them and the reply that I got, was the QUARTER MASTER!
C S M Simpson spoke to me about transferring to R A O C as a driver. I thought about it for two days. I then approached the C S M to sign my document and within the week I was in the R A O C. I took a driving test, which I passed.
One Friday in September 1946, the Sergeants Mess was robbed of cigarettes, tobacco and spirits. On the Saturday at 12.00p.m. I was on my way to the station with others when two civilians stopped me. They asked me what I had in my back pack and I told them that it was none of their business. They then showed me their documents and they turned out to be Special Investigation Police. So I opened my pack, out came a Army boot, I was asked why I was taking this home, I told them, to give them a good clean. I asked them why had they stopped us. One of them said had we not heard and we did not know what he was talking about. But it was the news that the Sergeants Mess had been robbed. I could have turned round and said to the "Try the Quarter Master, he stole my stores" But I thought better of it so I held my tongue!
It was 1947 and I had put in for an Overseas posting. I got the posting and I was then sent to Feltham in Middlesex,I had 7 days leave. At hat time, my wife had run off with an R A F Sergeant to Scotland. On my return, after my leave, at 6.00a.m., the draft for Germany came through. So I boarded a train to London, once in London I had to go across town to King Cross station. I waited there until 3.00 p.m. and then boarded another train for Hull up North. On the Monday, we boarded a ship for Germany. It arrived in Hamburg in Germany on Friday. We spent the weekend in Hamburg and we found the Germans were friendly. On the Monday we boarded a train which was to take us to Dusseldorf, When we arrived there a lorry was waiting for us so we got aboard. There were twelve of us. Off we went, along the way, the men were being dropped at different places. Everyone had got off except there were two of us left. When we stopped again, both of us reported to the Office. It was 145 Vehicle Park and I learnt that my other travelling companion was called Private Barr and he was Scottish. He went to the Quarter Master's stores. I just clicked my heels until Major Hurley read my documents and I was told to report to his office. He asked me questions such as "Was I a Prisoner-of-War?" I replied "Yes"."Can you speak and understand german" Once again I replied "Yes". So to se if I was telling the truth, he sent for a German to test me. This German had worked in the camp and he tested me and said I was alright. The Major then told me to report to the Special Police Unit in M I R. On arriving,no on was at home. The home address British Occupation of Rhine (BAOR). That afternoon I met Justeward N C O and Felix Kaufman, who was half Jew. He was the interpreter, he spoke to me in German, I replied, he then said "Are you Polish" I said "No" He said"Ex Prisoner-of-War good". Another interpreter was Alex, whose Father was English and the Mother was German. He had served with the German Air Force but he was not to be trusted by Felix.
My Mother wrote to me to tell me that my wife was going to have a baby, so I then made enquiries about obtaining a divorce.
Our duty was to recover War Department stolen property. We would check vehicles for wheels with loose nuts then we would lay in wait, at night. Nine times out of ten, we always had a result. When we visited places on information obtained, it more or less always led us to an arrest and trial. We made road blocks on the Autobahns where we would stop lorries or cars. One night, we stopped an Ambulance, the Police said "No Ambulance". I stopped the vehicle and what was inside was a cow and two German civilians. This was going to be a German Police case. The Mayor, had given us a free hand but it was only the Mayor that received our weekly reports. We received documents from the Mayor. Whenever we needed food or accommodation for the night at Army or Military, this was always available to us. We would always give them a telephone number so that it could be verified and that was that. But we never ever got freedom of the barracks. In the short time that we had been in operation, we had recovered quite a number of tyres and one vehicle. Saturday evenings were spent at the Cafe Belton which was in the town of Wermelskirenen. Here the Off Duty Officers and wives and other ranks would socialise with the Germans. The lads would be after the girls and when the cafe closed there would be no transport home, so they had to walk home. Christmas was nearly upon us. The lads had a good time with us that year. Officers and senior ranks waited on tables and after lunch, you could do as you wished. On the eve of the New year, there was one great party which was held at the Cafe Belton

My mother, Edie Lambourne, died aged 92 in June 2000, but over the years she told me stories of her experiences in World War 2, which I’d like to put on record.

In 1938 my mother married George Lambourne. Dad joined the Royal Horse Artillery in the early 1920’s and served for a number of years on the North West Frontier, but in 1938 his time was up and he had left the Army and got a job as a commissionaire. My parents had just put down the deposit on a brand new semi-detached house in Whitton - it cost £645 and they had taken out a 25-year mortgage, but before they could move in the War broke out and Dad had to return to the Army. As an older, experienced NCO he was kept back from active service, and spent his war training new recruits in various Army camps up and down the country. He told my mother: “Every new squad I get, I tell them they’re the worst lot I’ve ever seen.” He visited my mother when he could, and she occasionally managed to visit him briefly where he was stationed — Catterick, Newport, Woolwich etc. Sadly Dad died in 1955, so I don’t have many of his memories to pass on.

The mortgage still had to be paid, war or no war, so the house in Whitton was rented out in order to keep up the payments, and my mother moved back in with my grandmother, who was by then very elderly and infirm and living alone. They lived in a terraced house at No. 7 Kings Avenue, Hounslow, and next door lived her sister Ellen, her husband and their young son.

The sisters shared the job of looking after their mother, but Mum also worked at the Gillette razor blade factory on the Great West Road. She had been a factory girl before she married, but until the War all women were expected - indeed, forced - to stop work when they got married. Mum didn't think this was unfair, although she did know some girls who had kept their weddings secret so that they could keep their jobs. The War changed the rules, and Mum went back to work at Gillettes, before conscription for women was introduced.

The hours for the machine operators were 8 to 6. Working the machines was quite physically tiring, and the factory was very noisy. The girls communicated by signs and lip reading. They were usually on "piece work" i.e. paid by the number of items completed, and if the machine was faulty or broke down, you just lost the money for the number of "pieces" you couldn't do. Repairing the machines was a man's job, and the repairmen could be very awkward and bloody-minded about coming to fix your machine - they would often claim that there was nothing the matter with it - the girl must be doing something wrong!

A film clip of workers at the Gillette factory singing along to “Music While You Work” is often shown in TV programmes about the Home Front, and although Mum is not in it she could name most of the girls who were. There was supposed to be a “top secret” department somewhere at Gillette’s which made items for agents who were to be dropped behind enemy lines — razors with secret compartments and so on.

When the air raids began, Anderson shelters were installed in the gardens of No. 7 and auntie Ellen’s house next door. However, my grandmother was too infirm and slow on her feet to make the journey down to a cold damp shelter when the sirens went, so she stayed indoors and generally whichever sister was with her at the time would stay indoors too. At first they would hide under the dining room table (just an ordinary table, not a Morrison shelter), or in the cupboard under the stairs, but later on, when the V1 “doodlebugs” were about, my grandmother was confined to her bed in a downstairs room. Mum said that they would listen to the engine and pray “keep going, keep going…” but if they heard the engine of the doodlebug stop, she and her sister would throw themselves across their mother’s body, “as if that would have done any good”. Then came the awful silence until the explosion - but if you heard the explosion then you'd survived, until the next one...

Although Hounslow didn’t suffer as badly as other parts of London, there were many air raids aimed at the factories on the Great West Road or the various railways in the area. Unexploded bombs were sometimes left in the area for days until the Bomb Disposal teams could get round to them — there was one by the bus stop in Kingsley Road for some time. The hole was covered and roped off with a warning notice and a red roadmender's lamp to warn pedestrians, who in fact took very little notice and walked past as usual. Not all the unexploded bombs were found - two were discovered in the 1990's when Hounslow East station was being redeveloped. Every house was issued with a bucket and a stirrup pump for putting out incendiary bombs, although Mum never had to use hers.

On New Year’s Eve 1940 my mother and her brother and sister-in-law went to a party. On the way home, driving down the Great West Road after midnight, my uncle realised that there was a strange red glow in his rear-view mirror — they stopped the car and looked back up the road to see “all the sky was on fire over London behind us” - from the fires started in the City and the East End by the huge air raids that night.

Mum remembered vividly the day when Churchill made his famous “we will fight them on the beaches” speech on the radio. She remembered that she and her sister got out all the carving knives from the kitchen drawer and sharpened them in readiness…

The blackout was a problem, and Mum remembered one particularly dark and foggy night when she became completely disoriented on her way home, missing the turn into Kings Avenue and eventually finding herself in a builder’s yard several hundred yards away. On another foggy night my uncle Percy, who lived about half a mile away, waved down a double-decker bus which had lost its way in the fog, and was far off its route and heading for a railway bridge too low for it to pass under.

My uncle Percy was a plumber (a reserved occupation) and spent a lot of time reconnecting water supplies to bombed areas. One of his memories was of a house which had been bombed so severely that only one wall was still standing — “and on the second floor there was a shelf still fixed to the wall, with a row of jars of jam still standing on it unbroken — the rest of the room was gone.”

Another of his stories is perhaps less creditable — a café owner for whom he had done some work offered him some butter off the ration. The owner's explanation was this: “I was allocated so much butter per month for the cafe. At the end of the month I had stayed within my allocation and had a little bit left over — and like a fool I said so. Next time they set my allocation they reduced it. So from now on, if I have a bit left over, I’m not telling them. Would you like to have some?”. The quantities involved were not large, but very welcome.

During the Blitz the house in Whitton was badly damaged when a bomb demolished three houses about 50 yards away. Mum went to inspect the damage. “I thought they’d have to knock it down. All the tiles were off the roof, all the ceilings were down, all the windows were broken, there were cracks across the walls and all the fireplaces had been blown out into the middle of the rooms”. However, the authorities arranged for the house to be patched up by a local builder, and it was made habitable again. The former tenant couldn’t face moving back in and went to live in the country, but new tenants were found and the house survived the rest of the war.

Years later the results of the damage and the hasty, botched repairs were still coming to light. Behind one of the hurriedly replaced fireplaces was an empty space which gradually, over the years, filled up with soot until one evening in the late 40’s the whole accumulation caught fire. Luckily my parents were in the room at the time and put it out before the house burned down. In the 60’s we were told that the badly-repaired ceilings “could have come down any time in the past 20 years”; and to this day large crack-marks can be seen across several walls and none of the rooms are precisely "true". I am still not sure what would have happened about the mortgage if the house had been destroyed. Anyway, it wasn’t, so the Leeds Building Society got their money.

On VE day, my mother and my aunt went up to London to join the huge crowd in the Mall — in the films you see they are somewhere in the picture, shouting “WE WANT THE KING! WE WANT THE KING!” at the tops of their voices until he appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. My grandmother did not live to see the end of the war — on D-Day she struggled to a window to watch the huge flights of aeroplanes droning over towards the Channel, but the effort brought on a stroke from which she died shortly afterwards.

No doubt, for the majority of the contributors, it was our fathers, mothers even, who were in uniform during the 1939-45 war? Nevertheless, for many of us, taking place during our childhood, the Second World War formed an important memory in our formative years. Living close to London, my earliest memory is, when aged around 4-5, seeing the huge glow in the sky, as the London Docks, some 20 miles away, were aflame. However, allow me to relate a little happier memory of the WW2 - and my very first love affair . . .

Besides those unfortunate East Enders, my family had also experienced the Blitz when our former home, west of London, in Twickenham, was flattened in 1941. But moving on, it was now 1942 and the war was still raging. My father was with Monty on the Western Desert. Aged six, I now lived in Isleworth, Middlesex with my mother and, two years my junior, my sister Pam.

Opposite our home was one of the largest hospitals in the country, the West Middlesex, and, with a bedroom to spare; we were compelled to billet two nurses. One was a Scottish lass called Joan, and she was fairly plain. The other nurse was a London girl and her name was Jean. People described her as being petite. She was also dark-haired and extremely pretty.

Luftwaffe permitting, my mother put my sister and me to bed each night at around 7 p.m. Mum kissed us both goodnight - and so did the nurses, if they were not already out for the evening, or on night duty. Oh, how I loved being kissed by Jean. This was not like being kissed by my Mum, or by one of my aunts. This was a real kiss, on the lips, and me with my arms hugging tightly around her neck. Jean was probably about to go out on a date. There were plenty of British uniformed young men around and later the Canadians, with their attractive accents, arrived. The American GIs, with their bubble gum and smart gabardine uniforms, followed these. They were stationed not so far away from us, at General Eisenhower’s headquarters in Bushy Park.

Later my father was invalided out of the Army and it was not long before my two nurse friends had to leave us. Oh, how I cried! Fortunately for me they were only moving into nurses’ quarters within the hospital grounds, right opposite our home.

The war went into another year and, during the following one, the bombing resumed. It was 1944 and the incendiary and other bombs had failed to set London completely afire. Now, Hitler was sending us his latest little package of terror - the terrifying V1 flying bomb (or doodle bug as it was called). The V2 rocket bomb followed this and, of course, there was no warning at all with those. You heard a whoosh and then you were either dead or seriously injured! Samples of both types of weapon were delivered close to our home. A V1 landed three streets away causing considerable damage to the semi. Some weeks later, a V2 landed on a factory about a mile away, which, besides making a deafeningly loud bang, also caused death and devastating destruction.

Most of my school classmates were evacuated to the relative safety of the countryside, some for the second time. However, my father decided that Pam and I were to stay put in the London suburbs. I had no objection whatsoever. I knew my beautiful Jean was just across the road. Occasionally, she came to visit us. Sometimes, after school, I would peer through the hospital hedge, the railings having been removed to make guns or tanks, in the hopes I may catch a glimpse of her.

The following year the war ended. Imitating all the other little streets throughout the land, we had a street party on VE (Victory In Europe) Day. Lovely Jean came across helping the mums serve the kids with sandwiches filled with goodies we could not remember having tasted before. Cakes, jellies, blancmanges and something I did not recall having tasted previously nor, mercifully, since - junket followed these! Our biliousness passed within a day or two but, in any case, I had only feasted my eyes upon the very tasty Jean.

I loved my mother very much but Jean was definitely the first woman with whom, from the age of six and until nine, I was really in love. Or, was it just infatuation? I wonder how she looks now? If still alive, she would have to be approaching 80, but I bet she’s still a great beauty or, at the very least, a very pretty old lady!

Teenage Memories of World War Two
(only then they were NOT called teenagers!)

In 1939 I was working in a semi-underground building on a machine where my foot depressed a pedal and punched .303 calibre bullets into blued steel clips which my hands linked together. The end product was a measured ammunition belt ready to feed one of the eight machine guns in the wings of a Hurricane or Spitfire fighter aircraft.
By an ironic twist of fate, and a year later, I stood in a busy London street on the periphery of Shepherds Bush listening to, and watching, those same fighter aircraft spiralling vapour trails and firing their guns at attacking German war planes. I couldn’t help thinking:” I wonder if I filled those machine gun belts?” It was 1940 and I was now seventeen years old. The Battle of Britain soon escalated to the indiscriminate bombing of towns and cities in Britain.
I didn’t know it at that time but I would not return to my previous place of work until many decades later. Then it would be only to see the monstrous crater and mourn some of the victims I once knew who were killed in the terrible explosion at 11.10am on the morning of the 27th November 1944 at Fauld in Staffordshire. Then, thousands of tons of high explosive bombs that had been stored in the excavated caverns of Ford’s Gypsum Mine, blew a gigantic hole out of the hill at Hanbury causing death and devastation.
But I digress and deviate from my situation in 1940. I lived with my family (father, mother and younger brother) in a flat off the Uxbridge Road in Shepherds Bush. On that road, towards Acton, I had found work at a factory that made Aircraft controls.
Up above, in the wide blue yonder, fat, floppy, grey blobs of the Barrage Balloons dotted the London skyline. Sometimes these Blimps, as we called them, would break away from their moorings and dance erractically in the sky, dragging their distructive cables across the rooftops.
At the factory they formed a section L.D.V. an abbreviation for Local Defence Volounteers but better known at that time as Look Duck and Vanish. Later they became the Home Guard.
That autumn of 1940 saw many daylight air raids. When the warning sirens wailed we stopped work in the factory and crossed the busy Uxbridge Road to the shelters. These were the standard type resembling a long concrete tunnel buried half way into the ground with the excavated soil piled up on top. Hard, wooden slatted seats extended the length of those cold, damp musty smelling ovoid walls.
The daylight raids became so frequent the firm decided to employ men as spotters to watch from the roof. The siren was then ignored until the spotters sounded the internal alarm for raiders overhead. Then we could all go to the shelters. The sound of droning aircraft was very clear. Then the anti-aircraft guns stationed in Hyde Park and Wormwood Scrubs would open up forming a ‘Box-Barrage’ (a big square of exploding shells to divert enemy aircraft and perhaps assist our fighters). On one memorable occasion I watched fascinated as a big square was formed by many puffs of smoke from the exploding shells in the clear blue sky.
Well, as you know, what goes up must come down. Some people call it shrapnel but it wasn’t. The large, jagged slivers of metal, some about six inches or more long and maybe an inch wide were the exploding cases of the anti-aircraft shells. In this incident a shower of these shards clanged musically and frightfully on the road and pavement amongst us only to bounce high once more before coming to rest with a reverberant echo. Naturally I picked one up to add to my collection which included a nose cone and later a number of tail fins from incendiary bombs and a durolumin shaft and base of a container used for dropping clusters of incendiary bombs. None of these souvenirs were kept very long.
When the night air raids started, a multitude of searchlights stabbed at the dark sky. Most were white light but a few coloured ones mingled with the illumination all highlighted by the enforced blackout. No anti-aircraft guns were fired, and after several days of obvious inaction people began to ask why. Nobody bothered whether the guns were accurate at night or not, they wanted to feel that we were fighting back. When, without warning, it suddenly came the action was deafening. Every anti-aircraft battery in London seemed to be firing in unison. After that I saw no more searchlights piercing the night sky. There was a new noise to get used to though. It was the shrill screech of falling bombs. The blast of those near ones shook the house and the light bulbs danced erratically on the hanging flex.
Perhaps you’ve seen films of the so-called Blitz with families moving out to their cold and damp Anderson shelters? If so, spare another thought for those people who had no gardens to dig them in. I don’t remember anyone who had a metal in-door Morrison shelter. Queues would form long before dark with shadowy figures clutching bed rolls and personal belongings to enter the cellars of larger buildings. There were, of course, the brick-walled pavement shelters with a thick concrete, flat roof. These were notorious for collapsing like a deck of cards from an adjacent explosion. So, like many others, we made sure the black out devices were in place and just stayed put. When the night raid was really bad the family in the only flat above would join us and we would sit in the hallway. Under the stairs was supposed to be the best place. The hall or passageway from the front door was the nearest we could get. It was almost under the staircase of the upstairs flat.
Most nights the all clear would wail before daylight. The way I walked to work would reveal the tragedies of the night. The acrid smell of burning or the odour of premature demolished buildings would tinge the air. Deep craters in the road, some with ignited gas pipes flaming powerfully like an angry dragon in its lair. Houses reduced to debris. It was pitiful to see baths and lavatories hanging from broken walls and half collapsed floors. Churned up in the shattered bricks and mortar were the possessions of people, who for a while anyway, you wondered how fate had treated them. The cinema on the main road was one day a pile of rubble except for the entrance at the front. Ludicrous in a grotesque sort of way the still standing front wall advertised the film ‘Forty Little Mothers’ starring Eddie Cantor. Sometimes the air raid warning would sound again before I got to work and sometimes we could have a day or two’s respite without the wailing siren. On one such day, as brother and I returned to work at mid-day, a Heinkel bomber flew very very low over Shepherds Bush green and then opened up with its machine gun along the Uxbridge Road. Then, after we got over the shock, the siren on the green wailed its late warning.
But we were lucky really. Apart from a shard of metal smashing the back room’s sash window and an incendiary bomb which crashed through the roof. Yes, we nearly got it hot that night.
With no near explosions we decided to go to bed and catch up with some sleep. Startled, I heard a bang hitting the roof of the flat above us and then the hammering on our front door by one of the older girls from upstairs who was shouting that we were on fire.
When the fire-watchers arrived with their bucket and stirrup-pump they couldn’t get any water. Seemingly, in a panic, the bloke upstairs had turned off the water and the electric supply. Stupid as it may seem now, both brother and I dashed up and down the dark stairs carrying water in pots and pans to fill the fire-watchers bucket. We spilled more water over ourselves in the process. Eventually the fire was extinguished; but not before the bomb had burned its way through our ceiling and into our water logged front room. A burnt out sofa was pushed through a smashed upstairs window onto the pavement below. The horrible smell of burning lasted for days. There were many fires in the city that night but the worst was still to come.
It was Sunday evening and December 1940 had only two days left. Brother and I decided to walk into Acton and go to the pictures. The film was nothing special but it was somewhere different than sitting at home listening to the wireless. Halfway through, and superimposing itself on the mediocre black and white picture, a notice read:-
THE AIR RAID WARNING HAS SOUNDED.
THOSE WHO WISH TO GO TO A SHELTER
SHOULD LEAVE NOW
THE SHOW WILL CONTINUE.
Not many people left. There wasn’t many in the cinema anyway. We stuck it out for another half an hour then, bored stiff, we decided to walk home.
Once outside in the cool of the night air we got the shock of our lives. The sky towards Shepherds Bush was blood red. We watched in amazement as the crimson sky swirled in what looked like agonized torment to the accompaniment of screaming bombs and the roar of anti-aircraft guns. Overhead, the intermittent drone of enemy aircraft engines seemed to follow us on that long, terrifying walk home. Houses that we had walked past on our way to the cinema had disintegrated into ruins. A long wooden fence beside the pavement we had earlier walked upon was pitted with the jagged holes of bomb fragments. The horrible thought that if we had left the cinema when the warning flashed on the screen we would probably have no legs now, hurried our homeward steps. A row of terraced houses in the street leading off to our right looked completely demolished and the vehicles of the rescue teams stood in silence, waiting.
The air raids continued into the new year of 1941. By March of that year my father's job had transferred him to the North of England. They called it Cumberland in those days. Mother, brother and I were left in London awaiting a letter to say a new home was available. When that day came we saw our furniture and belongings loaded into the van. With insufficient money for train fares, arrangements were made for us to travel north in the back of the van; but not that day. The furniture van was scheduled to set off at first light from a lorry park somewhere in Chiswick. We had to find the place and the only way to do just that was to walk.
As the evening sky darkened to night the wailing siren heralded another raid. That final night in London, as the whine of bombs preceded the house shaking explosions, we made tea from an old kettle and drank our fill out of glass jam-jars.
It was still dark when we left our flat in the very early hours. The raid had ebbed and flowed all night and the guns still blasted their shells into the sky. I think we turned left into Uxbridge Road where luminous strips on the forever darkened lamp post glowed in guiding light through the dreary blackout.
From Goldhawk Road I think our aim was to find the Chiswick High Road. As dawn broke over Chiswick the all-clear sounded. We were more relieved to have located the van and a disgusting and distasteful smelling lavatory than to hear the sound of that long, wailing note we had heard so many times before. The conventional air raids would continue for another couple of months.

You don’t want to know that somewhere near ‘Rutland Water’ the half-shaft of the dilapidated van broke with a loud crack followed by a big skid and a stink of burning rubber, or that a year later I received a four shilling postal order (which I still have) and a leaflet which said :- ‘YOU ARE ABOUT TO BECOME A SOLDIER’. That’s another story.

In 1939 I was working in a semi-underground building on a machine where my foot depressed a pedal and punched .303 calibre bullets into blued steel clips which my hands linked together. The end product was a measured ammunition belt ready to feed one of the eight machine guns in the wings of a Hurricane or Spitfire fighter aircraft.
By an ironic twist of fate, and a year later, I stood in a busy London street on the periphery of Shepherds Bush listening to, and watching, those same fighter aircraft spiralling vapour trails and firing their guns at attacking German war planes. I couldn’t help thinking:” I wonder if I filled those machine gun belts?” It was 1940 and I was now seventeen years old. The Battle of Britain soon escalated to the indiscriminate bombing of towns and cities in Britain.
I didn’t know it at that time but I would not return to my previous place of work until many decades later. Then it would be only to see the monstrous crater and mourn some of the victims I once knew who were killed in the terrible explosion at 11.10am on the morning of the 27th November 1944 at Fauld in Staffordshire. Then, thousands of tons of high explosive bombs that had been stored in the excavated caverns of Ford’s Gypsum Mine, blew a gigantic hole out of the hill at Hanbury causing death and devastation.
But I digress and deviate from my situation in 1940. I lived with my family (father, mother and younger brother) in a flat off the Uxbridge Road in Shepherds Bush. On that road, towards Acton, I had found work at a factory that made Aircraft controls.
Up above, in the wide blue yonder, fat, floppy, grey blobs of the Barrage Balloons dotted the London skyline. Sometimes these Blimps, as we called them, would break away from their moorings and dance erractically in the sky, dragging their distructive cables across the rooftops.
At the factory they formed a section L.D.V. an abbreviation for Local Defence Volounteers but better known at that time as Look Duck and Vanish. Later they became the Home Guard.
That autumn of 1940 saw many daylight air raids. When the warning sirens wailed we stopped work in the factory and crossed the busy Uxbridge Road to the shelters. These were the standard type resembling a long concrete tunnel buried half way into the ground with the excavated soil piled up on top. Hard, wooden slatted seats extended the length of those cold, damp musty smelling ovoid walls.
The daylight raids became so frequent the firm decided to employ men as spotters to watch from the roof. The siren was then ignored until the spotters sounded the internal alarm for raiders overhead. Then we could all go to the shelters. The sound of droning aircraft was very clear. Then the anti-aircraft guns stationed in Hyde Park and Wormwood Scrubs would open up forming a ‘Box-Barrage’ (a big square of exploding shells to divert enemy aircraft and perhaps assist our fighters). On one memorable occasion I watched fascinated as a big square was formed by many puffs of smoke from the exploding shells in the clear blue sky.
Well, as you know, what goes up must come down. Some people call it shrapnel but it wasn’t. The large, jagged slivers of metal, some about six inches or more long and maybe an inch wide were the exploding cases of the anti-aircraft shells. In this incident a shower of these shards clanged musically and frightfully on the road and pavement amongst us only to bounce high once more before coming to rest with a reverberant echo. Naturally I picked one up to add to my collection which included a nose cone and later a number of tail fins from incendiary bombs and a durolumin shaft and base of a container used for dropping clusters of incendiary bombs. None of these souvenirs were kept very long.
When the night air raids started, a multitude of searchlights stabbed at the dark sky. Most were white light but a few coloured ones mingled with the illumination all highlighted by the enforced blackout. No anti-aircraft guns were fired, and after several days of obvious inaction people began to ask why. Nobody bothered whether the guns were accurate at night or not, they wanted to feel that we were fighting back. When, without warning, it suddenly came the action was deafening. Every anti-aircraft battery in London seemed to be firing in unison. After that I saw no more searchlights piercing the night sky. There was a new noise to get used to though. It was the shrill screech of falling bombs. The blast of those near ones shook the house and the light bulbs danced erratically on the hanging flex.
Perhaps you’ve seen films of the so-called Blitz with families moving out to their cold and damp Anderson shelters? If so, spare another thought for those people who had no gardens to dig them in. I don’t remember anyone who had a metal in-door Morrison shelter. Queues would form long before dark with shadowy figures clutching bed rolls and personal belongings to enter the cellars of larger buildings. There were, of course, the brick-walled pavement shelters with a thick concrete, flat roof. These were notorious for collapsing like a deck of cards from an adjacent explosion. So, like many others, we made sure the black out devices were in place and just stayed put. When the night raid was really bad the family in the only flat above would join us and we would sit in the hallway. Under the stairs was supposed to be the best place. The hall or passageway from the front door was the nearest we could get. It was almost under the staircase of the upstairs flat.
Most nights the all clear would wail before daylight. The way I walked to work would reveal the tragedies of the night. The acrid smell of burning or the odour of premature demolished buildings would tinge the air. Deep craters in the road, some with ignited gas pipes flaming powerfully like an angry dragon in its lair. Houses reduced to debris. It was pitiful to see baths and lavatories hanging from broken walls and half collapsed floors. Churned up in the shattered bricks and mortar were the possessions of people, who for a while anyway, you wondered how fate had treated them. The cinema on the main road was one day a pile of rubble except for the entrance at the front. Ludicrous in a grotesque sort of way the still standing front wall advertised the film ‘Forty Little Mothers’ starring Eddie Cantor. Sometimes the air raid warning would sound again before I got to work and sometimes we could have a day or two’s respite without the wailing siren. On one such day, as brother and I returned to work at mid-day, a Heinkel bomber flew very very low over Shepherds Bush green and then opened up with its machine gun along the Uxbridge Road. Then, after we got over the shock, the siren on the green wailed its late warning.
But we were lucky really. Apart from a shard of metal smashing the back room’s sash window and an incendiary bomb which crashed through the roof. Yes, we nearly got it hot that night.
With no near explosions we decided to go to bed and catch up with some sleep. Startled, I heard a bang hitting the roof of the flat above us and then the hammering on our front door by one of the older girls from upstairs who was shouting that we were on fire.
When the fire-watchers arrived with their bucket and stirrup-pump they couldn’t get any water. Seemingly, in a panic, the bloke upstairs had turned off the water and the electric supply. Stupid as it may seem now, both brother and I dashed up and down the dark stairs carrying water in pots and pans to fill the fire-watchers bucket. We spilled more water over ourselves in the process. Eventually the fire was extinguished; but not before the bomb had burned its way through our ceiling and into our water logged front room. A burnt out sofa was pushed through a smashed upstairs window onto the pavement below. The horrible smell of burning lasted for days. There were many fires in the city that night but the worst was still to come.
It was Sunday evening and December 1940 had only two days left. Brother and I decided to walk into Acton and go to the pictures. The film was nothing special but it was somewhere different than sitting at home listening to the wireless. Halfway through, and superimposing itself on the mediocre black and white picture, a notice read:-
THE AIR RAID WARNING HAS SOUNDED.
THOSE WHO WISH TO GO TO A SHELTER
SHOULD LEAVE NOW
THE SHOW WILL CONTINUE.
Not many people left. There wasn’t many in the cinema anyway. We stuck it out for another half an hour then, bored stiff, we decided to walk home.
Once outside in the cool of the night air we got the shock of our lives. The sky towards Shepherds Bush was blood red. We watched in amazement as the crimson sky swirled in what looked like agonized torment to the accompaniment of screaming bombs and the roar of anti-aircraft guns. Overhead, the intermittent drone of enemy aircraft engines seemed to follow us on that long, terrifying walk home. Houses that we had walked past on our way to the cinema had disintegrated into ruins. A long wooden fence beside the pavement we had earlier walked upon was pitted with the jagged holes of bomb fragments. The horrible thought that if we had left the cinema when the warning flashed on the screen we would probably have no legs now, hurried our homeward steps. A row of terraced houses in the street leading off to our right looked completely demolished and the vehicles of the rescue teams stood in silence, waiting.
The air raids continued into the new year of 1941. By March of that year my father's job had transferred him to the North of England. They called it Cumberland in those days. Mother, brother and I were left in London awaiting a letter to say a new home was available. When that day came we saw our furniture and belongings loaded into the van. With insufficient money for train fares, arrangements were made for us to travel north in the back of the van; but not that day. The furniture van was scheduled to set off at first light from a lorry park somewhere in Chiswick. We had to find the place and the only way to do just that was to walk.
As the evening sky darkened to night the wailing siren heralded another raid. That final night in London, as the whine of bombs preceded the house shaking explosions, we made tea from an old kettle and drank our fill out of glass jam-jars.
It was still dark when we left our flat in the very early hours. The raid had ebbed and flowed all night and the guns still blasted their shells into the sky. I think we turned left into Uxbridge Road where luminous strips on the forever darkened lamp post glowed in guiding light through the dreary blackout.
From Goldhawk Road I think our aim was to find the Chiswick High Road. As dawn broke over Chiswick the all-clear sounded. We were more relieved to have located the van and a disgusting and distasteful smelling lavatory than to hear the sound of that long, wailing note we had heard so many times before. The conventional air raids would continue for another couple of months.

You don’t want to know that somewhere near ‘Rutland Water’ the half-shaft of the dilapidated van broke with a loud crack followed by a big skid and a stink of burning rubber, or that a year later I received a four shilling postal order (which I still have) and a leaflet which said :- ‘YOU ARE ABOUT TO BECOME A SOLDIER’. That’s another story.

Not a lot happened during 1939 or Spring 1940, but as we moved into early summer the air raids were much more frequent and lasted much longer. By now rationing was introduced and for some goods was to last until the early 1950s. As we moved into September, the Battle of Britain was at its height. We lived almost entirely in our Anderson Air Raid Shelter. We'd all helped to build this: it was about 9ft by 5ft and we had dug down about 6ft to start building. We had steps down into it, a porch at the entrance, hooks for clothes and shelves for radio,a clock, thermos flasks and food tins,books and puzzles. We were issued with bunks, and had a light, running off a car battery. With blankets, pillows and hot water bottles we slept quite cosily.
My father joined the Home Guard and I learned how to put out incendiary bombs and use a stirrup pump. I became a fire watcher at the laundry where I still worked.
We longed for dull foggy days, but the skies were clear and the raiders came relentlessly. We watched fighters take off from Heston airport and counted them as they returned much later: so many missing.
We had our first taste of the bombing in October 1940. We no longer listened for air raid sirens and all clear signals. Sometimes raids lasted all day or all night. We automatically went straight to the shelter on returning home from work and stayed there until morning.
On October 21st we awakened about 4 a.m. hearing a terrible bang. The whole shelter shuddered. We realised that a bomb had been dropped close by. We couldn't see anything because it was too dark, so went back to sleep. Shortly afterwards, there was a banging on the shelter door and an air raid warden flashed his torch inside. He told us a large bomb had landed on a house opposite ours, bringing the house down and killing the old gentleman who lived there alone. It had not exploded and the whole area had to be evacuated. We were given 5 minutes to collect a case full of things and leave. The assembly point was the Mission Hall opposite the laundry where I worked. My brother and sister were so frightened. My father was making arrangements to get my grandfather moved;he was bedridden and slept in a downstairs room reinforced with iron girders. He was whisked away by ambulance and never returned home again. We were a sorry lot trailing down the road with our neighbours, some with coats over nightclothes, carrying young children, some with dogs and cats and birdcages. Old and young, we were a dejected lot until someone started to sing: "There's a long, long trail a-winding"
On arrival at the Church Hall, we had to sign in,giving name, address and number in family. We each got 2 blankets and a palliasse, found a space in the hall and made up our beds. We were all there for 4 days. The WVS were wonderful and provided us with breakfast of porridge, toast and marmalade at another church for anyone who wanted to go. We couldn't cook anything as the gas ring only had 2 burners, but we made endless tea and lived off fish and chips. We didn't get much sleep as people were coming and going day and night, working different shifts. We were also very conscious that we were in a wooden building with a tin roof-not much protection. We weren't allowed back into the house for anything but my father managed to sneak over the back fence, feed the chickens and bring us clean clothing. Eventually we were told that it was safe to return: the bomb was not set on a time fuse, so would not now explode. It was left till after the war when a huge crane lifted it out. Had it gone off,we were told, the whole street would have gone up as well.
The raids continued throught the winter and as water seeped into the shelter we returned to sleep in the house. Daytime raids were upsetting during working hours. A look out post linked to Hesto Airport was set up on the roof of our laundry. If the airport siren went, we knew to head for the deep shelter. Once there we knitted for the forces: gloves, mittens, scarves helmets and long sea boot stockings with wool etc provided by the WVS.
The autumn brought the first terrible onslaught on London and the surrounding areas and this continued well into 1942. Night after night: they were indescribable. We returned to shelter life. We concreted the floor to keep out the water.That winter was one of the worst for Southall and Heston as the bombers were aiming all the time at the airport. We spent the days clearing glass and broken items in the house. The safetymen inspected the damage and declared our house unsafe, but as we had nowhere else to go, we were allowed to stay, provided we slept in the shelter and did not use the upstairs at all. We had no electricity or gas and my father fixed up a camping stove and an open fire on bricks. We seemd to be the only family with even these facilities for cooking. There were no doors on the house, but my father nailed a tarpaulin over the roof and men came in the afternoon and nailed canvas over the open windows. A few days later, gas and electricity were on again. One thing that sickened all of us were the looters, stealing whatever they could from people who had lost so much.
Now there was a new threat- incendiary bombs. These were not very big but on landing they burst into flames. Fire watching became essential; buckets and flowerpots filled with wet earth or sand were best: as they landed we quickly turned the pots on top of them. The main danger was that they landed on roofs and caught fire before they could be reached.
Winter 1942 and through to summer 1943 there was not a lot of activity. The summer of 1944 brought the flying bombs, V1s or doodlebugs as they were known. They were small in comparison to an aeroplane and were pilotless, just an engine and a bomb. Some travelled further than others but not many reached further than North London. Kent bore the brunt, but a lot of the country there is open and they fell in open fields. They could be heard and seen so clearly. We watched and listened for the engine stopping, then just lay flat wherever we were. Most evenings were spent in the shelter.
My fiance stationed overseas sent me a parcel for my 21st birthday which arrived on August 29th. I decided to leave opening it until after work. I was never to know what was in that parcel: during the day we knew that a V1 had come down near to my home and my foreman sent me home to see if everything was o.k.. The nearer I got to home, the worse the damage. There were ambulances and fire engines and I was really frightened. I knew my mother was at home as well as my brother, who was on school holidays. I can remember saying over and over as I got nearer: "Be in the shelter! Be in the shelter!" I arrived to find a heap of rubble: 12 houses were down in all. I checked the shelters and they were not there. I helped our next door neighbour out of her shelter, with her little nephew. Her husband, who worked nights had been in the house in bed. There was nothing I could do but stand, watch and wait.
The warden came and told me my brother was safe but injured. He'd climbed out himself and was on the way to hospital. My mother and the dog were still buried in the rubble and the teams were waitng for lifting gear to get the beams off of her. They lifted the beam clear and found our puppy lying across her legs whimpering. My sister and father arrived home not knowing that there had been a bomb and collapsed in a state of shock. By the time they got her out, she was unconscious as the doctor had given her an injection. She and my father were whisked away in the ambulance,leaving me and my sister, who was still weeping.
I clambered over the rubble and rescued family documents and dad's Home Guard rifle and ammunition. Friends took us in and found out where Mum and my brother were. Wally was in Southall and Mum and Dad in Hillingdon, which was six miles away. Wally was not badly hurt but very shocked and worried about Mum. To this day he still has a piece of glass in his chest. Mum was a different story: the doctor asked to see me and told me she was desperately ill. Her body was a mass of glass splinters and she had a deep wound to her lower body. He didn't think she would last the night.
In the meantime friends and neighbours had worked hard to slavage what they could, but already looters had broken into the garden shed and all dad's tools had gone and all the chickens had been taken. The oddest things survived: the mantle clock, a bottle of milk, mum and dad's wedding china, but so much had already been taken.
The house was definitely unsafe and a fire had started. 2 of our neighbours had been killed and more injured. I couldn't sleep for worrying about the future.
My mum became known as the human pincushion, she was so pitted with glass. She survived against all the odds, but to the end of her life in 1967 she still had glass working towards the surface. I made an appointment to see the Air Raid Distress Officer for I needed new ration books and clothing coupons for all the family. They were very helpful and local friends and neighbours did what they could. I also started badgering the housing department to find us somewhere to live. I didn't have much luck as raids were continuing and more people were made homeless. Houses were in short supply and I saw one or 2 unlikely flats. Eventually I was offered the ground floor of a large detached house which I accepted. We had no curtains, bedding, very little furniture and only a few household items we had salvaged. Once again I visited the Air Raid Distress Organisation asking for help. I was given coupons for curtains bedding and blankets and dockets for furniture and lino. They also had a large warehouse of utility household goods for people in our situation: crockery and cutlery and some furniture for the sum of £25. It was not much but a start. The American red Cross were also very helpful giving us kitchen equipment, rugs and quilts. We also got a cheque for £150 from the Lord Mayor of London's distress fund as dad had paid into this regularly, never thinking he would need it. We also got a box of linens from the Kings Hall Sisterhood friends. I made curtains and we scrubbed out the flat all ready to move in and for Mum to come home from hospital.
It was a horrible house really despite our best efforts. Rats were a constant pest and we had to have the pest control officer. We were also plagued by ants, spiders and crickets.
The flying bomb terror had subsided but we did get a few V2s. The nearest one landed on the Smiths Crisp factory at Osterley killing hundreds.
So into 1945. Mum needed more operations and I heard that my fiance was missing believed killed in Burma. Whatever else could happen to us?
The war ended in May. We pulled down the blackout and turned on all the lights!!Dad was looking into the possibility of getting our house rebuilt and we spent many evenings making an inventory of all we had lost for the insurance company. That June we paid the final instalment on the original mortgage, but there was nothing there! My fiance was pronounced officially dead in November. Our house in Regina Road was rebuilt in 1946 and we moved back in November of that year. We as a family considered ourselves fortunate compared with many. We were together again in our own home and although Mum was to carry the scars and weakness to the end, she was able to resume family life.

Wartime Schooldays
I was 9 years of age when the war started. I was in church with the Brownies on 3 September. We had only just settled down when the Vicar said that he had been told to send us all home. It was just after 11 o'clock when Chamberlain had made his announcement that we were at war. At the same time there was a false alarm and all the air raid sirens went. We filed out of church and I noticed many people kneeling at prayer.
As soon as we got outside we were told to run as fast as we could to get indoors. It took us about 20 minutes to get to where we lived, and every time we stopped some passers-by would tell us to run. I got home and sank down in the kitchen, quite exhausted.
My mother had gone upstairs where my grandfather was in bed and had said to him: "I don't know what to do. War has been declared, there's an air raid on, and Pam's out". He said: "Don't worry. She's in church, so she'll be all right", little thinking that we would have been turned out.
For some weeks we were unable to go to school. Apparently workmen had started to dig underground shelters on the school playing field, but had struck water, so they had to build brick shelters above the ground.
After some weeks those of us who would be taking the 11-plus the following year were allowed to go to school for one half-day a week.
The school was used as an ARP (Air Raid Precautions) post where men and women were on duty all day, waiting for the siren to sound and being on the alert for any bombs that might fall. There was a complete blackout. We had to have heavy blackout curtains at our windows as well as our ordinary curtains, street lights and car lights and traffic lights were dimmed, and air raid wardens would go round the houses and if they saw so much as a chink of light through a curtain they would knock on the door and tell us to draw the curtain properly.
Every man, woman and child was issued with a gas mask because it was expected that the Germans would use gas against us. The masks were rubber, tightly fitting round the face, with some sort of substance in the lower part which would enable us to breathe. For small babies there was a large mask which covered their whole bodies.
For the first few months of the war life went on much the same. There was a large barracks where we lived and suddenly there many more man - and women as well, which was something new - being trained for the Army. Anyone who had a room to spare was asked to have a soldier or AT (Auxiliary Territorial which was the women's service) billeted on them. Many of my friends' families did this, but we didn't at first because there were already five of us living in our house.
Rationing didn't begin to bite until the beginning of 1940. Every man, woman and child had a ration book which was marked out for every week of the year and items like meat and dairy products and sugar were strictly rationed. The amounts per person were:
1/2d (about 6d) of meat.
2 oz bacon
4 oz cooking fat
4 oz margarine
2 oz butter
8 oz sugar
2 oz cheese
1 egg (if available)
3 pts of milk
Some other items like jam, tinned fruit, dried fruit, jellies, soap, sweets, were on points. You had a certain number of points and you could use them on any of these items until you had used them up.
Coal, which most people used to heat their houses, was also strictly rationed and I remember my mother having a furious row with the coalman because he said he hadn't any coal for her and my grandfather was seriously ill and there was no way of heating his bedroom.
One day I had taken a large ball like a football to school with me. As I was coming out of school with my friends one of the man on duty at the ARP post signalled me to throw it to him. Soon we were having a game with the ball, but after some minutes we realised that someone was shouting at us and saw that our Headmistress was standing on the other side of the fence. She told us to go home at once and we did. the next day in assembly she told the whole school that she had seen "a sight that I hope I never see again - some girls playing netball with those men out there". I as the owner of the ball had to own up and was told to keep it at home in future. To this day I can't understand what the fuss was about. It wasn't as if we were teenagers who might have been flirting with the men - it was all quite innocent, but that's teachers for you.
As 1940 wore on we realised that things were getting very serious. Norway and Denmark were invaded, then Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg, and the final disaster of the fall of France.
In August the Blitz began. My father was on holiday from work, but there was no question of going away. We were discouraged from travelling, and anyway most of the South Coast was covered in barbed wire. We had gone out for the day and were just getting off the bus when the air raid siren sounded. I said "But we haven't got our gasmasks". Although we were supposed to take them everywhere with us, most of us had got blase about carrying them and left them at home. We got home without any further alarms, but I felt very frightened, expecting a bomb to fall at any moment.
From then on there were constant air raids. School was often interrupted by the sound of the siren and we would have to go immediately to the shelter. We were told to get together a tin of essential food and a first aid tin in case we had to stay for hours at a time in the shelter. Of course, we ate the food, usually within a few minutes of going into the shelter. Lessons would continue in the shelters. Sometimes we weren't able to go to school at all - once a land mine had dropped near the school. My father was in the Special Constables, so was often on duty in London all night, and we didn't know until he arrived home if he was safe.
Many families had what was called an Anderson Shelter, named after the Home Secretary of the time. This was made of corrugated iron and was put in the back garden. It had to be sunk some way into the earth, and was fitted with bunk beds. We didn't have one because my grandparents were too infirm to climb into a shelter, but when the bombing got serious we moved out beds downstairs. My grandfather had died by that time, so my grandmother and I slept together in the front room while my parents slept in the back room with a large mahogany table pulled over them. We now had a soldier billetted on us and he slept upstairs.
In November 1940 five bombs were dropped in our road. My father was out. I had been in bed, but couldn't sleep because of the noise, so had gone into the dining room with my mother and grandmother. There was a heavy thump, and crash of glass, the light went off and then came on again, and then all went quiet. My mother went outside and said that there was a fire down the road and I said "Was it just in incendiary bomb making all that noise?" Then someone came knocking at the door. It was an air raid warden who said that a mine had been dropped and might go off at any minute, so we would have to leave the house. My mother said: "But we've nowhere to go" and he said that we could go to a Rest Centre, a place, usually a local Hall where people who had been bombed out could go. She said:"But how can we get there? My mother can't walk" and he said they could send a car for us. Then she said: "But my husband is on his way home from work. He won't know where we are" but he said that they could leave a message for him at the ARP post.
Soon a car came along and we got in. We were taken to a local church hall where we were shown into a room with one camp bed and several chairs. Soon some neighbours of ours arrived. while we were settling down my mother was trying to telephone some of the places where my father might be, but the lines were affected by the bombs and she couldn't get through. She said that I had better get to sleep, so I settled down on the camp bed. Some time later I woke up and asked where my mother was. My grandmother said: "she's just gone outside for a little while". Almost immediately my mother appeared with one of the neighbours. She told me that my father was dead. He had been making his way down our road when the bombs dropped. He had been blown down an alleyway between two houses just ten doors from our home, and had been killed instantly.
Some time between his body being found and his arrival at the hospital someone went through his pockets and took all his money, including his pay packet which he had just drawn. My mother would say afterwards that this hurt her more than anything else.
The next day we went to stay with my father's sister at Southall and stayed there for a week until the land mine had been removed and made safe.
From then on our lives were drastically altered. My mother's pension was quite inadequate to cover our needs, so she had to go to work full time. My grandmother died a year after this, so I spent many lonely hours at home on my own. I would stay at school until the last possible moment to put off going home to an empty house and I dreaded the school holidays and Saturdays

Mechanical teats or udder bliss!

Expectations of a pending war loomed on the horizon one year prior to the actual outbreak on Sept. 3rd 1939. In 1938, being 18 years old, I knew that my “call-up” was inevitable and having been born into and living the first 8 years of my life within the atmosphere of a Cavalry regiment background, it was automatically assumed by my parents and myself that a female section of the army would be my choice.
However, the months went by and in June 1939 it was again expectations of war and I became aware that the Women’s Land Army were recruiting and that one recruiting venue was in a private house not far from where I was living with my parents in Ealing, West London - so along I went and duly enrolled. What a change of ideas on my part - especially as I’d been scared of cows until an incident cured me of that fear. Although my father had finished his army career by then, we were living in a country location near an army garrison and in order to catch my ‘bus’ to take me to Grammar School 7 miles away - a walk of a mile from my home along a route also taken by cows making their way between milking shed and the grazing fields. We didn’t coincide until one morning - when they must have been either early or late and oh what horror, what was I to do? The answer was simple as in those days one wouldn’t consider missing one’s bus and being late for school. There was no choice even though no cowman in sight to provide confidence, so a question of braving it, holding my case of school books and lunch box close to my side as a shield, trembling somewhat and walking in amongst the cows, being bumped into by one and another of them until at last I emerged ahead of them - where upon a huge sigh of relief escaped my lips and fear miraculously fell away. Talk about feeling like a conquering hero(ine) and surprised at being quite safe. Maybe an ulterior motive of meeting a boy from my schooldays who I rather fancied and a desire to return to country living was the reason for joining the W.L.A. - although I was happy in my office job at Head Office of Gregg Publishing Co./Schools in Russell Square, London and the travelling by tube train Monday — Saturday was no burden. A couple of weeks after the war started I was instructed to go to Oaklands Agricultural College near St. Albans, Hertfordshire for 4 weeks training where I met up with several other W.L.A. trainees and kitted out with our uniforms - Breeches, short sleeved Aertex blouses, knee length woollen socks, Wellington boots, sturdy lace up shoes, long sleeved pullover, dungarees and jacket, thick riding style short overcoat, gabardine ‘mac’ and felt hat plus tie and badge. Underwear was our own. The first evening was in classroom where the Principal explained the various courses: Dairy - which included hand milking and various jobs in the cowshed, plus young bullocks and also the piggery: Poultry: Horticulture. We were given a choice and yours truly the only one to opt for Dairy etc. so the Principal asked for a volunteer to keep me company and only one girl offered. Next morning it was up early to start in the cowshed at 6.00 a.m. and learn to milk - not with a real cow but a contraption consisting of a make believe udder filled with water and fitted with valve controlled teats - this set up was slung from a cross beam between wooden uprights. What excruciating agony in fingers, wrists and forearms in trying to “milk” the water into the pale clasped between one’s knees whilst sitting on a three legged stool. This agony lasted for 3 or 4 days and oh what a relief when the pain subsided as one became proficient at milking and then transferred to a real cow. Utter bliss by comparison with the wooden cow, although that didn’t have a tail to swish and catch one’s face a stinging blow - however, all part of the job along with swilling clean the cowshed floor afterwards. Then off to feed the pigs and clean out their pens and take about 6 for a walk! Yes that’s right, preparing them for a show ring apparently - I cannot remember whether young boars or gilts. A couple of land girls and a pigman, each with a light stick, just used to guide them along the track. Another job was to go, armed with a halter, into a field of young bullocks, catch one and proceed to take it for a walk also - “in a string as though with racehorses”. This was for the benefit of a documentary film being made at the time. Mine would insist upon trying to push me into the hedge and one had to be tough to prevent that happening but I had my foot trodden upon which resulted in me repeatedly losing, regrowing and losing a toenail for many years afterwards. Never mind, all part of the course! In spite of it all - such a difference to London office life and I took it all like a duck to water and was rather surprised at the end of the 4 weeks to hear the lady supervisor tell me that when she first saw me, didn’t think I’d stay the course - must have appeared pale and willowy I suppose. Rather on a par with my Father who had said “I’ll give you three months and that will be it”. Apparently he’d worked on a farm for a while before joining the Army - but that was way back about 1900 when conditions would have been much harsher. To round off the 4 weeks I was thrilled to be asked to stay on an extra week-end in order to help in the show ring. How important I felt, leading a heifer or two in front of prospective buyers. Then it was down to earth with a bump from near perfect conditions to the reality of the usual farm conditions of those days when I was sent to one near Potters Bar in Middlesex and had ‘digs’ with a family on a new housing estate nearby. After paying the stipulated ‘digs’ money and insurance stamp - you were left with the princely sum of 6 shillings per week. Two incidents stand out from this posting - having ‘a go’ on the bottle washing machinery — thinking that it would be much better than milking. Once was enough for me - this shed was open to the elements on one side, it was November, the bottles and the water so cold as one removed them from the moving belt into crates. Soon became stone cold from head to toes - ugh! The other incident was when detailed to stand almost at one end of a longish passageway between two rows of cattle pens in a large shed — wave my arms about and deflect a young bull into one of the pens whilst a cowman was driving it from the other end. Hair raising to say the least. Once again, as in the experience with the herd of cows in my school days I ended up unscathed and not trodden down. I was happy enough in my work here but did want to get into the area of my latter schooldays in Hampshire and found an advertisement for a W.L.A. girl - milking and general farm work in a village close to that location and moved in late January 1940.

Hides, shrapnel and romance!

Everything about this new job was a great improvement even though hard work and I did soon meet up with the boy afore mentioned! a bonus indeed and by now a young man of 20 and still working his apprenticeship and not yet called up. So romantic - I remember it well - being busy washing the pails etc. in the dairy and being brought a letter which turned out to be a Valentine card and having been in the same form for 4 to 5 years, I recognised the handwriting. How did the sender know I was there? via another boy from our form whom I’d bumped into inside the Post Office a week or so earlier when I’d cycled into Andover on my free Saturday afternoon and who had obviously relayed the fact to our mutual schoolfriend.
The next year passed happily with varied farm work - milking being the main one and various unforgettable incidents - two of which could have been very serious but thankfully fate ordained otherwise. A bomb, one of several meant for a nearby airfield fell exactly where my boyfriend and myself had been sat on our bicycles at the driveway entrance gates to the farm chatting away after an evening at the cinema. The village air raid warden had come along and asked my boyfriend to help him remove an airman who was blind drunk and lying in the middle of the road some quarter mile away. We said Goodnight and went our separate ways - boyfriend to help with the airman and on then back to Andover and myself to the farm and bed. Before I had undressed there was such a lot of noise, the room shook and crump, crump --------bombs. My first experience and I didn’t know whether to dive under the bed or what. The noise died away and I ran downstairs again to join the farmer, his wife and the cowman. The cows were in a field close by so the men went out to investigate. Two or three were killed outright, another one or two had to be humanely shot and the remainder were brought into the cowshed. Next morning before milking we were picking bits of shrapnel out of their hides. The other incident was when I thought it would be a good idea to clean the gulley between the two sloping roofs of the cowshed, so put up a ladder and as I was about to step into the gulley, the ladder slid away and me with it. Landing on the concrete yard I didn’t stop to see if I was hurt - disentangled the foot still on a rung, jumped up and ran straight through the cowshed - obviously reaction to shock. Thankfully no-one was around to witness my ignominy and I pulled myself together but abandoned the original idea and found another job to get on with. Goodness knows how I didn’t break a leg or worse. On another occasion the wind changed direction and blew flames from a bonfire in my direction, resulting in singed eyebrows and hairline.
During these 12 months I’d met and become friendly with the land girl on farm just a couple of hundred yards along the road. She hailed from the Isle of Wight, but became homesick and returned there and I took her place as I’d become friendly with that farmer and his wife - their son and daughter were attending the school I’d been at and I lived in the farmhouse en famille. The farm that I’d come from belonged to someone termed “gentleman farmer” who lived in the large country manor with farm and parkland. My first ‘digs’ there was in the farm bailiff’s house, occupied by a bachelor and his sister-in-law with her young son, she acting as housekeeper and whose husband was in submarine based on Malta - after a couple of months she was able to join him out there and then an older housekeeper was employed who didn’t stay long so I was moved into the ‘big house’ having a large pleasant bedroom in the attics and meals with the cook/housemaid.

High fashion in the rain and fire watching duties

I spent another 12 months on this second farm in the village but unfortunately developed milkers neuritis and had to give up milking so was sent to a market garden at Staines, Middlesex. However, life continued to have it’s incidents whilst still on the farm - one dark winter’s morning, milking alone in the cowshed, with a hurricane lamp in the feed bin when the door opened and all I could see were three tiny points of light - I was petrified as there was always the fear of enemy parachutists - but then a disembodied voice announced that “George couldn’t be milking as he were bad”. It was the boy’s father the carter from another nearby farm and the points of light were from his hurricane lamp hidden inside his overcoat and the light coming through the button holes!
The market garden was nowhere near as interesting as farm work and the animals but one can usually find compensations. I could be with my parents every week-end as it was not all that far from Ealing-and travelled using tube to Hounslow and bus from there to Staines. There were about 10 W.L.A. girls here in addition to ‘civilian’ men and women who lived close by. Our first day was spent mending wooden boxes - used for packing vegetables - armed with hammers and nails. I don’t remember anybody missing a nail and hammering themselves. We were billeted in various houses close by - in pairs as I remember. Work was varied according to the seasons. Potato planting and harvesting, frozen brussel sprout picking, trying to get swedes out of the ground and resorting to kicking them out, indoor and outdoor tomatoes, indoor and outdoor flowers, washing carrots in a special contraption. On particularly wet days, it was the fashion to tie sacks around our shoulders, waists and legs on top of all our other clothing in a vain endeavour to keep dry. Then there was fire watching duty on a rota basis in pairs - using the shed cum office which contained two large old sagging armchairs and a tortoise stove with a limited supply of fuel for it - plus fuel for ourselves in the shape of thick slices of cheese and thick slices of bread which we toasted on the stove - delicious to ever hungry land girls and washed down with cocoa. We dozed in the armchairs in cosy comfort until the stove burned low and then to ashes and we’d wake feeling decidedly chilly. The owner told us to look to ourselves first if incendiaries were dropped as, with all those glasshouses around, it would be lethal to attempt any heroics with water buckets and stirrup pump. Luckily nothing nasty happened but we were glad to be in pairs on this duty. One memorable occasion during my twelve months here was when our area social overseer had received a consignment of clothing from America - known as ‘Bundles for Britain’ and invited us to her home in Laleham, Middlesex for a social evening and to distribute the clothing. We were able to choose a garment in order of length of service. I had my eye on a warm full length coat lining - probably sheepskin - but was pipped at the post by a girl who had enrolled about a week before me and she too had her eye on that garment. However, I came next and chose the next item of warmth - a two-piece ski suit made from a thick blanket type material which was just my size. Another year had passed and my father’s prognosis of 3 months had turned into 3¼ years! Reason for leaving? Marriage - to the “boy” from my schooldays.
I’m still in contact with the “girl” I met at the market garden — and shared those “sagging armchairs and tortoise stove” on fire watching duties.