Bombs dropped in the borough of: Lambeth

After a few months of the tortuous daily Bus journey to Colfes Grammar School at Lewisham, I'd saved enough money to buy myself a new bicycle with the extra pocket money I got from Dad for helping in the shop.
Strictly speaking, it wasn't a new one, as these were unobtainable during the War, but the old boy in our local Cycle-Shop had some good second-hand frames, and he was still able to get Parts, so he made me up a nice Bike, Racing Handlebars, Three-Speed Gears, Dynamo Lighting and all.
I was very proud of my new Bike, and cycled to School every day once I'd got it, saving Mum the Bus-fare and never being late again.
I had a good friend called Sydney who I'd known since we were both small boys. He had a Bike too, and we would go out riding together in the evenings.
One Warm Sunday in the Early Summer, we went out for the day. Our idea was to cycle down the A20 and picnic at Wrotham Hill, A well known Kent beauty spot with views for miles over the Weald.
All went well until we reached the "Bull and Birchwood" Hotel at Farningham, where we found a rope stretched across the road, and a Policeman in attendance. He said that the other side of the rope was a restricted area and we couldn't go any further.
This was 1942, and we had no idea that road travel was restricted. Perhaps there was still a risk of Invasion. I do know that Dover and the other Coastal Towns were under bombardment from heavy Guns across the Channel throughout the War.
Anyway, we turned back and found a Transport Cafe open just outside Sidcup, which seemed to be a meeting place for cyclists.
We spent a pleasant hour there, then got on our bikes, stopping at the Woods on the way to pick some Bluebells to take home, just to prove we'd been to the Country.
In the Woods, we were surprised to meet two girls of our own age who lived near us, and who we knew slightly. They were out for a Cycle ride, and picking Bluebells too, so we all rode home together, showing off to one another, but we never saw the Girls again, I think we were all too young and shy to make any advances.
A while later, Sid suggested that we put our ages up and join the ARP. They wanted part-time Volunteers, he said.
This sounded exciting, but I was a bit apprehensive. I knew that I looked older than my years, but due to School rules, I'd only just started wearing long trousers, and feared that someone who knew my age might recognise me.
Sid told me that his cousin, the same age as us, was a Messenger, and they hadn't checked on his age, so I went along with it. As it turned out, they were glad to have us.
The ARP Post was in the Crypt of the local Church, where I,d gone every week before the war as a member of the Wolf-Cubs.
However, things were pretty quiet, and the ARP got boring after a while, there weren't many Alerts. We never did get our Uniforms, just a Tin-Hat, Service Gas-Mask, an Arm-band and a Badge.
We learnt how to use a Stirrup-Pump and to recognise anti-personnel bombs, that was about it.
In 1943, we heard that the National Fire Service was recruiting Youth Messengers.
This sounded much more exciting, as we thought we might get the chance to ride on a Fire-Engine, also the Uniform was a big attraction.
The NFS had recently been formed by combining the AFS with the Local and County Fire Brigades throughout the Country, making one National Force with a unified Chain of Command from Headquarters at Lambeth.
The nearest Fire-Station that we knew of was the old London Fire Brigade Station in Old Kent Road near "The Dun Cow" Pub, a well-known landmark.
With the ARP now behind us,we rode down there on our Bikes one evening to find out the gen.
The doors were all closed, but there was a large Bell-push on the Side-Door. I plucked up courage and pressed it.
The door was opened by a Firewoman, who seemed friendly enough. She told us that they had no Messengers there, but she'd ring up Divisional HQ to find out how we should go about getting details of the Service.
This Lady, who we got to know quite well when we were posted to the Station, was known as "Nobby", her surname being Clark.
She was one of the Watch-Room Staff who operated the big "Gamel" Set. This was connected to the Street Fire-Alarms, placed at strategic points all over the Station district or "Ground", as it was known. With the info from this or a call by telephone, they would "Ring the Bells down," and direct the Appliances to where they were needed when there was an alarm.
Nobby was also to figure in some dramatic events that took place on the night before the Official VE day in May 1945 when we held our own Victory Celebrations at the Fire-Station. But more of that at the end of my story.
She led us in to a corridor lined with white glazed tiles, and told us to wait, then went through a half-glass door into the Watch-Room on the right.
We saw her speak to another Firewoman with red Flashes on her shoulders, then go to the telephone.
In front of us was another half-glass door, which led into the main garage area of the Station. Through this, we could see two open Fire-Engines. One with ladders, and the other carrying a Fire-Escape with big Cart-wheels.
We knew that the Appliances had once been all red and polished brass, but they were now a matt greenish colour, even the big brass fire-bells, had been painted over.
As we peered through the glass, I spied a shiny steel pole with a red rubber mat on the floor round it over in the corner. The Firemen slid down this from the Rooms above to answer a call. I hardly dared hope that I'd be able to slide down it one day.
Soon Nobby was back. She told us that the Section-Leader who was organising the Youth Messenger Service for the Division was Mr Sims, who was stationed at Dulwich, and we'd have to get in touch with him.
She said he was at Peckham Fire Station, that evening, and we could go and see him there if we wished.
Peckham was only a couple of miles away, so we were away on our bikes, and got there in no time.
From what I remember of it, Peckham Fire Station was a more ornate building than Old Kent Road, and had a larger yard at the back.
Section-Leader Sims was a nice chap, he explained all about the NFS Messenger Service, and told us to report to him at Dulwich the following evening to fill in the forms and join if we still wanted to.
We couldn't wait of course, and although it was a long bike ride, were there bright and early next evening.
The signing-up over without any difficulty about our ages, Mr Sims showed us round the Station, and we spent the evening learning how the country was divided into Fire Areas and Divisions under the NFS, as well as looking over the Appliances.
To our delight, he told us that we'd be posted to Old Kent Road once they'd appointed someone to be I/C Messengers there. However, for the first couple of weeks, our evenings were spent at Dulwich, doing a bit of training, during which time we were kitted out with Uniforms.
To our disappointment, we didn't get the same suit as the Firemen with a double row of silver buttons on the Jacket.
The Messenger's Uniform consisted of a navy-blue Battledress with red Badges and Lanyard, topped by a stiff-peaked Cap with red piping and metal NFS Badge, the same as the Firemen's. We also got a Cape and Leggings for bad weather on our Bikes, and a proper Service Gas-Mask and Tin-Hat with NFS Badge transfer.
I was pleased with it. I could definitely pass for an older Lad now, and it was a cut above what the ARP got.
We were soon told that a Fireman had been appointed in charge of us at Old Kent Road, and we were posted there. After this, I didn't see much of Section-Leader Sims till the end of the War, when we were stood down.
Old Kent Road, or 82, it's former LFB Sstation number, as the old hands still called it,was the HQ Station of the District, or Sub-Division.
It's full designation was 38A3Z, 38 being the Fire Area, A the Division, 3 the Sub-Division, and Z the Station.
The letter Z denoted the Sub-Division HQ, the main Fire Station. It was always first on call, as Life-saving Appliances were kept there.
There were several Sub-Stations in Schools around the Sub-Division, each with it's own Identification Letter, housing Appliances and Staff which could be called upon when needed.
In Charge of us at Old Kent Road was an elderly part-time Fireman, Mr Harland, known as Charlie. He was a decent old Boy who'd spent many years in the Indian Army, and he would often use Indian words when he was talking.
The first thing he showed us was how to slide down the pole from upstairs without burning our fingers.
For the first few weeks, Sid and I were the only Messengers there, and it was a very exciting moment for me to slide down the pole and ride the Pump for the first time when the bells went down.
In his lectures, Charlie emphasised that the first duty of the Fire-Service was to save life, and not fighting fires as we thought.
Everything was geared to this purpose, and once the vehicle carrying life-saving equipment left the Station, another from the next Station in our Division with the gear, would act as back-up and answer the next call on our ground.
This arrangement went right up the chain of Command to Headquarters at Lambeth, where the most modern equipment was kept.
When learning about the chain of command, one thing that struck me as rather odd was the fact that the NFS chief at Lambeth was named Commander Firebrace. With a name like that, he must have been destined for the job. Anyway, Charlie kept a straight face when he told us about him.
We had the old pre-war "Dennis" Fire-Engines at our Station, comprising a Pump, with ladders and equipment, and a Pump-Escape, which carried a mobile Fire-Escape with a long extending ladder.
This could be manhandled into position on it's big Cartwheels.
Both Fire-Engines had open Cabs and big brass bells, which had been painted over.
The Crew rode on the outside of these machines, hanging on to the handrail with one hand as they put on their gear, while the Company Officer stood up in the open cab beside the Driver, lustily ringing the bell.
It was a never to be forgotten experience for me to slide down the pole and ride the Pump in answer to an alarm call, and it always gave me a thrill, but after a while, it became just routine and I took it in my stride, becoming just as fatalistic as the Firemen when our evening activities were interrupted by a false alarm.
It was my job to attend the Company Officer at an incident, and to act as his Messenger. There were no Walkie-Talkies or Mobile Phones in those days, and the public telephones were unreliable, because of Air-Raids, that's why they needed Messengers.
Young as I was, I really took to the Fire-Service, and got on so well, that after a few months, I was promoted to Leading-Messenger, which meant that I had a stripe and helped to train the other Lads.
It didn't make any difference financially though, as we were all unpaid Volunteers.
We were all part-timers, and Rostered to do so many hours a week, but in practice, we went in every night when the raids were on, and sometimes daytimes at weekends.
For the first few months there weren't many Air-Raids, and not many real emergencies.
Usually two or three calls a night, sometimes to a chimney fire or other small domestic incident, but mostly they were false alarms, where vandals broke the glass on the Street-Alarms, pulled the lever and ran. These were logged as "False Alarm Malicious", and were a thorn in the side of the Fire-Service, as every call had to be answered.
Our evenings were good fun sometimes, the Firemen had formed a small Jazz band.
They held a weekly Dance in the Hall at one of the Sub-Stations, which had been a School.
There was also a full-sized Billiard Table in there on which I learnt to play, with one disaster when I caught the table with my cue, and nearly ripped the cloth!
Unfortunately, that School, a nice modern building, was hit by a Doodle-Bug later in the War, and had to be demolished.
Charlie was a droll old chap. He was good at making up nicknames. There was one Messenger who never had any money, and spent his time sponging Cigarettes and free cups of tea off the unwary.
Charlie referred to him as "Washer". When I asked him why, the answer came: "Cos he's always on the Tap".
Another chap named Frankie Sycamore was "Wabash" to all and sundry, after a song in the Rita Hayworth Musical Film that was showing at the time. It contained the words:
"Neath the Sycamores the Candlelights are gleaming, On the banks of the Wabash far away".
Poor old Frankie, he was a bit of a Joker himself.
When he was expecting his Call-up Papers for the Army, he got a bit bomb-happy and made up this song, which he'd sing within earshot of Charlie to the tune of "When this Wicked War is Over":
Don't be angry with me Charlie,
Don't chuck me out the Station Door!
I don't want no more old blarney,
I just want Dorothy Lamour".
Before long, this song was taken up by all of us, and became the Messengers Anthem.
But this little interlude in our lives was just another calm before another storm. Regular air-raids were to start again as the darker evenings came with Autumn and the "Little Blitz" got under way.
To be continued.

As I was only 3 years old when WW2 began, I have no memories of before the war. In about 1943 I was given a banana by a soldier on
leave from Africa, but I had no idea what it was or what to do with it. On being shown how to peel it, I then took half an hour to eat it, savouring every mouthful.
I wonder if the other local children who were also given a banana have similar memories.

These days bananas are so plentiful that younger people will not realise what aluxury they were in the 1940's.

On the rare ocassions when the greengrocer had a delivery of oranges, my mother would collect up the childrens' green ration books, walk half a mile to the shop and then join the queue to bring back some oranges.I probably stayed like a dog in the kennel in our Morrison shelter.

I was only one at the outbreak of war, one of four children born between 1935 and 1941. Memory starts with seeing my brother brought home after he was born in 1941, when I was just three. We lived in the road that led from Penge to Crystal Palace. At least four houses in it were flattened, and more than half including ours were damaged. I do not recall the collapse of our roof but was often told of my fathers dramatic trip up the stairs through a fog of powdered plaster, to rescue me: I was 'miraculously' lying in my cot surrounded by debris, yet unharmed. My mother has told me that one night at the height of the night-time blitz, she and my father abandoned hope, when the bombs seemed to be setting fire to the whole neighbourhood. They lay in each others arms waiting for the end with the sound of Armageddon in their ears. The sky, all around, was flickering red she said.
Mostly, though, we used to sit under the stairs wearing ghoulish Mickey Mouse gas-masks. My mother had Edward, my youngest brother inside a sort of capsule into which she used to pump air, whilst my father was fire watching. There were frequent air-raids which I enjoyed, because I was brought down stairs. I felt no fear, I didn't think we could be hit, since my mother showed no fear herself. I knew that people were hit though. At a nursery school I attended one child stopped appearing at school and I heard that she had been killed. I recall her name, Valerie, because I had sat next to her for a time. I kept her drawing book in which she had painted what she said was “A pea family”. I guess she had been told the flowers she drew were members of that botanical order.
During the raids my mother used to look into a coal fire which we could see from the door of the “air raid shelter”, and make up stories which were inspired by shapes she showed us in the fire. After the war, I boasted about her apparent courage when my first 'girl' came to tea. My mother interrupted: “I was in a state of blue funk from start to finish” she said. My father was not afraid though - he had been in the trenches and fought in the Battle of the Somme. He had got used to being shelled all day every day. “But as long as you don't have to do anything” he said, “its OK”. Neither he nor we thought anything of his Somme medal. “We all got them” he told us – no heroics then – we believed him.
Each morning after a raid we ran to school, hoping to see new bomb damage, and find shrapnel which boys collected. We backed onto the cricket field in the Crystal Palace Grounds (now a park, then being used by the army). One could trace the line of bomb craters, like a malevolent giant's footsteps stalking across the field culminating in a direct hit on a large nursing home (Parklands). This was largely destroyed leaving only a beautiful dome almost like the Hiroshima memorial. Like all the kids we played amongst the willow herb in the dangerous ruins. We and our friends 'owned' bomb-craters which remained for years after the end of the war. The water filled ones were very educational - with dragonflies, water-boatmen, water-spiders and so on. One night an incendiary bomb fell in our tiny front garden, and my mother couldn't open the sack of sand you were supposed to empty on them. She says she tipped the cat's earth box on it - but I have no recollection of that. Another time the soldiers in the requisitioned house next door, who we children had befriended, pulled us into their practice trenches when a siren suddenly sounded in the day. I looked up and saw a plane screaming across the sky with tiny sparks on the leading edge of its wings. For us it was a Spitfire shooting down a Messerschmitt, but of course it might have been the other way round.
When the V1's began to arrive it was very terrifying, as they sometimes came with no siren. When their engine cut out, the residents below had a few uneasy seconds to wonder where they were going to land. It was said you could hear them coming through the air, if they had your house number on them. We were fortunate to survive a narrow escape, but it pushed my poor mother into a nervous breakdown. She had set out with us from Crystal Palace, to visit Horniman’s museum which was situated in nearby Forest Hill. As we came out of the house, I looked up and saw what appeared to me to be an odd-looking aircraft. I was familiar with the shapes of the more common planes that flew around, but this seemed quite unlike them, having very stubby wings. Whether this was the V1 that occurs later in the story I don't know. If it was, it must have circled around for at least fifteen minutes before it fulfilled its purpose. We took a bus near to the museum - and stopped off at a sweet shop. There my mother got into an argument with the shop assistant who was talking with another person instead of attending to her. We were all obliged to walk out as an ostentatious demonstration of my mother’s anger. We children were not pleased as we walked along toward the museum. A few minutes later there was the loudest bang I had ever heard, and some of us fell down. As we got up we saw that a bus had stopped at a rather acute angle to the kerb - I don't know if it was pushed there by the residual blast or if the driver reacted in surprise. He looked at us and asked us if we were hurt. My mother was very shocked, and he offered us a free ride back to our street which we accepted. As we went past the row of shops my mother shouted that the sweet shop, from which we had walked in a huff, had been 'bombed out'. I looked and saw a lot of bricks and glass lying at the side of the road and people running out of surrounding buildings. Later on she used to swear that the shop had been completely demolished, but I don't recall seeing any actual gap in the stand of shops.
Shortly after that my mother told my father that she couldn't take any more and we left for Oxford to stay with relations. My mother just wrote them a letter and set out once she thought they had got it. On the way we saw the build up of war materiel at the side of the track. I watched a Bristol Beaufighter land amid huge clouds of smoke. My mother asked my father if it had crashed, but I think it was just dust on a hot summers day. All the aeroplanes and gliders had black and white stripes on their wings - all boys knew them to be 'invasion planes'. On the train a kind older couple agreed to take my two older sisters for the night. They later reported that they were terrified and thought the kindly woman was trying to poison them when she offered sweets. On arrival at Oxford I got lost, and was taken in hand by a WAAF who sat with me where she found me, until my father reappeared. As we approached the house of my aunt we saw her sitting in an upstairs window. I couldn’t follow the conversation between her and my mother, but in later years I heard that it went something like this. Mother – desperately: “Did you get my letter? Aunt - frigidly: “yes – but didn’t you get my telegram?” We stayed in Oxford for 14 weeks with a nice old couple who couldn’t have been kinder, with five extra people to cope with – my father having returned to London. We took a trip down the river to Abingdon, our steamer staying close to another one full of young men in cobalt blue uniforms, some with manifest injuries. “Aren’t they quiet?” my mother said to two ladies we were befriended by. It turned out they were convalescent American aircrew. “They are on our side” my mother said. I have never forgotten their white uncertain faces. They had seen the horrific face of war.
The V1 menace passed as the invading forces overran the launch sites, and we returned. On the way up the hill from the station we heard – out of the blue – a sudden huge bang. It was the second loudest I ever heard, after the V1 in Forest Hill. We got home very shaken, to hear later that a new weapon had been launched at us – the first of the V2 rockets. Even aged six I could see how crestfallen my poor mother looked. And a week or so later her sister’s flat was badly damaged when one hit one end of Park Court, the stylish apartment block lower down the street in which she lived with her son. The boy, who was my age, told me he had looked at the wreckage and seen the V2’s nose “with German writing on it”. At the time I believed him but of course it was nonsense. His mother broke down and my elder sister later acted out the sudden collapse in tears which she had witnessed. “Uncle Jim hasn’t written since he was taken prisoner”, she told us. He had been captured at some point, which my mother rather callously told us “was not very glorious”. Other husbands, sons and fathers were not so lucky. I recall a discussion between my sympathetic mother and a friend who had lost a son, where the phrase “right through his helmet” in a rising tone of distress culminated in a hysterical outburst which I found frightening.
I was in bed when news of the surrender came. All the electric trains whose tracks infested the area stopped and turned on their strange whistles. The next morning the world was exactly the same, but completely different. It was a sunny day and looking at the urban flower beds near the shops I got a picture of blue sky, green grass and scarlet flowers, and it was peace. There were lots of celebrations, and we walked up to Crystal Palace and looked out over the city where bonfire after bonfire into the distance were blazing like ever receding sparks.
The park with its bomb-craters and its reel upon reel of barbed wire and other seemingly unused equipment was cleared by the German prisoners and we befriended them as we had the soldiers before them. One said to my mother “We give you tea, we demand coffee”, just like a real German was supposed to talk, but she understood it was a confusion in the simple English they were learning. The trade was established. They used to sit in a circle at their breaks and sing snatches of English songs they were learning “Spring is coming, spring is coming, all the little bees are humming”. One man picked up my little brother who had long blond hair and danced with him in his arms saying “I am going to take him back to Germany”. I ran in, in a panic, thinking he was going to finally show his true Nazi qualities, but my mother was watching from the gate and just took my hand. Peace had arrived, and with it my little brother’s epilepsy, and a polio outbreak which raged around the area. That vision of blue sky, red flowers and green grass has stayed with me all my life – I always dream of peace. But I know now it’s the one thing you never get – that dream cannot be realised.

Don’t tell Adolf about the wonders of country living for a small city boy. Don’t tell Adolf about the exciting playgrounds of the bomb damaged houses. Don’t tell Adolf about the excitement of the search lights and the guns and don’t tell Adolf how he changed my early childhood into an adventure often frightening, but with vivid memories I recall to this day.

My very first ever memories are framed by the war. It must have been sometime in 1940 when I was almost four years old. Our family, my Mum and Dad and my older sister Thelma, were living in a Victorian row house in Clapham, London. This area has now become quite fashionable with house prices equal to my father’s life time income. Then, it was a working class neighborhood, clean and respectable, populated by postmen, mechanics and lorry driver tenants like my father. The only thing I can remember about the interior of the house was the Morrison shelter in the center of the bedroom. There I spent many weeks of isolation with a severe attack of the mumps in uncomprehending discomfort, picking at the grey paint of the cage unable to take anything more solid than my mother’s blancmange and barley water, her remedies for all known human ills. I’m sure my parents were grateful the authorities provided us with a combination bomb shelter, table and sick bed, although I wonder was anyone actually saved by this contraption? This was a time when one’s betters weren’t questioned; my family rarely doubted they must know what was best for us. For those who know only about more serious bomb protection the Morrison shelter consisted of a bed surrounded with stout wire mesh and a steel top on four corner legs about the right height for a table. The idea was to prevent the occupants from being crushed to death under falling masonry, a small sanctuary to wait in, listening for the scrape of shovels and praying to be rescued before the air ran out. In addition to the ugliness and awful paint its major flaw was the assumption that we would all be in bed when the house collapsed, a family so stunted by food rationing that we were able to sleep together comfortably in a double bed. Did Adolf realize the Morrison was part of the propaganda war designed to show the Germans that we English were just as viral as the master race; a people that only needed a tin bed as protection from their bombs?

As I got better I was allowed to play in the garden at the rear of the house. I remember it as long and narrow flanked on one side by the windows of a small factory making parachutes, or bully beef, or some other necessity for killing the enemy. The weather must have been hot as I recall the young women talking to me through open windows. They seemed happy in their factory routine and the pound or two a day they earned which was probably the best money they had ever made. Or were their smiles just for the rather shy little boy they gave the small pieces of chocolate and orange segments then as rare and sought after as black truffles? If there’s a page in the calendar that can marked as the beginning of my generally good relations with the opposite sex it’s probably spring 1940.

There are many more memories that come to me clearly but they are mixed in a jumble of time. It must have been after the serious bombing of London started in summer 1940 that my sister and I were evacuated. We were all caught up in a great sea of events and
if the choice for our parents was having us with them so we could all be reduced to rubble together or safe country life for their children, it was not difficult to decide which train to catch. An adult knows the terrors and uncertainty of the world and has worries beyond tomorrow but a small boy knows only the moment and thinks of an hour as an eternity if an ice cream is promised.
We were sent to live with a Mr. and Mrs. Daniels and their two sons on their small holding at Gidcott Cross, a junction of narrow country roads about six miles from the market town of Holsworthy in the county of Devon. The surrounding country was divided into small irregular fields on a plan lost in antiquity, surrounded by tall hedges topped with thick bushes and occasional trees.

Many evacuees have grim stories to tell and we were very lucky to be in the care of a loving couple who treated us like their own. The Daniels had a few acres near the house and some additional pasture rented nearby. On this they kept a few milk cows, all with pet names, Daisy, Sadie and Jessie, a pig or two and a muddy barnyard full of chickens. A pair of ducks stayed most of the year in a narrow rivulet that ran around the house. A female dog Sally, always ready for a rabbit hunt, followed us around everywhere when she was not ensuring a new supply of terriers. The farm house had, or rather has, as it seems little changed over the years, thick rough walls yearly whitewashed, four or five rooms in two stories under a thick thatched roof. The Daniel’s house was at the foot of gently sloping fields set back from the road with a pig barn on the left and the milking shed and hay storage on the right of the heavy slab stone front path.

Mr. Daniels was a member of the local Home Guard, a group of tough wiry men too old for immediate military service. There were no blunderbusses or pikes, but modern weapons were in short supply. Mr. Daniels had upgraded to a worn double barreled shot gun a deadly weapon in his hands as all the rabbits knew. At lane intersections old farm wagons loaded with rocks were ready to be pushed into a road block. One clever ruse was redirecting the road signs, a confused German being thought better than a lost one. Any one advancing down the road to Holsworthy would find them selves in Stibbs Cross with only one pub, a much less desirable place to take over. The home guard met regularly near our cottage for drill and comradeship. It was so popular that the institution lived on well after the war as a social club. These men knew every blade of grass for miles around and would have caused any German paratroopers much annoyance if Adolf the military genius had ordered landings in this remote corner of England.

When they were not repelling German invaders the Home Guard kept an eye on the Italians in the area. Up the road was the Big Farm, big because it had a barn large enough to house a half dozen trustee Italian prisoners of war working the land. Riding on farm wagons pulled by huge shire horses, as petrol was very scarce, they would stop outside our cottage on their way to the fields. They looked like old men to me though they were just young boys probably not yet 18, endlessly happy to be out of the war, captured by a humane enemy and ending up in this idyllic setting. They carved wooden whirligig toys with their pen knives for me and the nostalgic Italian songs they sang I can hear in my mind to this day.

It was a wonderland for we city kids with farm animals, the open country to explore and no shortages of food. The farm was in most ways self supporting, if you wanted a stew you shot a rabbit or two, or cut the throat of a chicken. I helped with the endless farm chores collecting eggs every day from the nest boxes, when the chickens were good enough to cooperate. Many chickens didn’t appreciate the conveniences we provided and made the job into an adventure searching the hedgerows for errant layers. No tinned or horrible dried food for us, everything was fresh as the vegetables pulled from the ground within sight of the front door. When we eventually returned to London my sister and I were noticeably well fed and quite fat, the battle for my waist line probably goes back that far!

Without modern conveniences it took most of the daylight hours to keep the house running and everybody was expected to pitch in. Another of my ‘helping’ jobs was to help fill the water barrel. With a small boy’s bucket and many trips I walked up the road a hundred feet, to the well hidden in a hedge tangled with wild roses, pushed the wooden cover aside and, after tapping on the surface to send the water spiders skimming out of the way, dipped in my bucket. This taught country ways very quickly and water became a precious commodity to be recycled for many uses until it was finally used to scrub down the flag stone floor. The water was heated in a large black iron kettle hung on a chain over a log fire in the inglenook fireplace the only source of heat in the house. Cooking had changed little over hundreds of years and savory stews and soups were made over the burning logs in large iron cauldrons. There was no electricity or gas in our cottage and finer cooking required Mrs. Daniels skillful fussing with a flimsy paraffin oven in the back room from where emerged a stream of delicious pasties, or covered pies, filled with a range of edibles that would have surprised even a Chinese cook. These pasties were brought out every meal covering the table with a smorgasbord of dishes from ham and egg, potato and wild berries, until finished. The men took them into the fields stuffed in their Home Guard haversacks and with a jug of local cider and after grueling days in the sun bringing in the harvest ate dinner sprawled against the hay stacks. The days ran with the cycle of the sun; the evenings were lit sporadically with a noisy pressured paraffin lantern and bedtimes were shadowy with the light of candles.

I remember my evacuation with the Daniels as an idyllic time although now I detect there must have been a feeling of abandonment and bewilderment long buried. One of my parent’s visits I didn’t recognize the lady with my father as my mother had just started wearing glasses. Later on, another visit, I wandered the lanes all day looking for them on a country walk they had taken and was tearfully relieved to find them sitting in a field eating sandwiches having no idea how upset I was at being left. Evacuation must have had a profound effect on many young children like me. My wife thinks that this experience is the cause of many of my strange ways and quirks of personality although I claim genius has its own rules.

My sister and I were returned to London after a couple of years in the country, the precise timing is vague in my memory. The aircraft bombing was much less now although the sirens still wailed for the occasional raid setting the guns booming on our local Clapham Common. I wish I still had my treasured collection of shrapnel from the antiaircraft shell bursts that rained down razor sharp fragments of torn steel and made being outside as dangerous as the bombing. These would be poignant reminders of this time so distant it feels like another life. Memories of my best friend Basil who always managed to find the pieces with serial numbers, the most coveted in our collection.

I recall one night the warning sirens sounded and the sky was lit by searchlight beams probing for the attackers. Within minutes the street was as bright as the sky, plastered with small oil filled fire bombs. They were everywhere causing small fires in the gardens and on the roofs of our street. One slid through the slates and wedged itself under the cooker of our upstairs neighbour, Mrs. Tapsfield. My father spent the night running up and down the stairs carrying buckets of dirt from the garden and spraying the cooked cooker with a stirrup pump. I can, even now 60 years later, see my mother next morning standing on a chair with a hat pin puncturing the hanging bladders of water filled ceiling paper from the flood upstairs. The fire bombs caused a lot of minor damage but they were all damped down and none of our neighbours lost more than a room or two. For many years after the sheet metal bomb fins would turn up when a new flower bed was dug deep. The trusty stirrup pump gathered dust in the coal cellar ready in case it was of need in another war in the new atomic age.

England was a very grey place with some rationing into the 50’s. For us kids Clapham was a wonderland of bomb damaged play houses and vacant rubble strewn lots. There were complete sides of buildings missing leaving the floors with wallpapered rooms precariously suspended. Bath tubs and staircases were stuck teetering to a wall with no apparent support stories up and the cellars were half filled with debris with only dusty tunnels for access. You can imagine the games these inspired for us boys. A special game was attacking and defending the half flooded abandoned concrete gun emplacements on Clapham Common and exploring the communal air raid shelters dug in the square. If only our parents had known!

How do you remember the events of a war time childhood? Memories are like a damaged film, occasional clear scenes separated by long stretches scratched and out of focus.
Through the often repeated stories distorted by their retelling; by today’s chance incidents that start a flow of thoughts to a half forgotten scene. Was it a page in a book or an E mail from a friend, who can tell the truth from imagination? I cannot be sure of the exact timing and the precise details of my experiences in WW2 they have been rounded off by time, and in this diary I have done my best. Although the accuracy may not be perfect and who can be sure in the valley of the shadow of memory, I hope to have conveyed the atmosphere of my experiences in these anecdotes.

My Grandfather was Flight Lieutenant Leonard Thomas Mersh and this is just a glimpse in his life during World War 2, like many of the pilots he has a number of log books, with many miles accounted for and the stories to go with them.

Len went to Woods Road School in Peckham and then on to Brixton School of Building, where he qualified as a joiner. In 1938 at 18 he joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve. At Aberystwyth he made the grade to be a pilot and was then sent to Canada for further training in Montreal and Nova Scotia Newfoundland where he gained his wings on Havards and Ansons.

Once back in England he went to Aston Downs and flew many aircraft across England, eventually he was posted to East Kirby in Norfolk attached to 57 Squadron Bomber Command. He flew many missions over Germany and France and as far as the Baltic. Missions included laying mines in the fjords where submarines and battleships where hidden. Dresden; Droitwich, Hamberg, Nuremberg, Brunswick and Gravenhorst were some of the places he bombed. Some times he carried the Grand Slam bomb.

In January 1945 he and his crew where sent to Stettin Harbour to lay mines at night. They where one of the lucky ones, as 350 planes had been sent and only 50 came back. Granddad’s plane was attacked by enemy fighters and was hit but they managed a second run over the target to release their mines.

In March 1945 during a sortie against Bohlen, his aircraft was attacked by a Junkers 88. The plane was hit but they made three bombing runs and then hedgehopped back to England.

On the 26th October 1945 Leonard was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, (DFS), for courage, determination and efficiency.

After completing operational tours and six mine laying sorties he was drafted to 31 Squadron, Transport Command at the end of the Dutch Indonesian Campaign flying VIPs. He flew General Mansergh to Bali being the first RAF plane to land on March 8th 1945 to accept the Japanese surrender.

In 1948 Leonard was drafted to Germany to help with the Berlin Airlift. The squadron reopened airstrips which had been closed at the end of the war, plot routes into Berlin and get them working, the Americans would move in and the squadron would move on to another station. They flew by day and night and were lucky to gain 5hours sleep, which was taken in Mess chairs, which is perhaps why he caught TB, which ended his career and he then spent a lot of time in and out of hospital.

First thing I remember of September 1939 is being told we must deny any Jewish family connections.

We lived in a fairly large house opposite Clapham Junction, South London. We quickly moved house to one further from the busiest railway junction in London, which was a prime target.

Our first Air Raid Shelter was the London Transport underground tube station. Bunks had been placed along the platforms and each evening, we would arrive with a few possessions and take our place in a two-tier bunk; the only privacy was a blanket suspended from the top bunk. At this time, my father was a fire-fighter so mum was alone in the Tube with two small children. If one wanted the loo, we all had to go, complete with any possessions - teddy bears and dolls! I was very nervous, not of bombs but of some of the weird people who we were living so close to.

If we were out during the day and a siren sounded, some of the shops would open the trap-door in front of their shop (which was used for deliveries) and we'd scuttle down the ladder. My favourite shop was David Greigs, us kids were spoilt there. I always dawdled outside hoping the siren would sound, never giving a thought to bombs! Then the Government installed the Anderson Shelter for each family. It was sunk into the ground for about 3ft and measured roughly 9ft by 9ft. It had two, two-tier bunks and accommodated our 6 family members with a squeeze. This was luxury after the Tube, but, being below ground level with no ventilation, it was damp and began to smell. Everything went mouldy and I still recognise the smell. I hated the toilet arrangements - a bucket outside for use during a lull, brought inside for use during a raid. During this time, my brother, aged 5, developed asthma and my father T.B., although he was not aware he had it. Dad got his calling-up papers and was turned down on medical grounds, but the examining doctor refused to tell him why or warn him of the Tuberculosis they'd found. I heard my parents worriedly discussing it and I was glad he wouldn't be going to war.

The evacuation of London began. I was ready to go with my gas mask, case and with a label tied to my coat. My brother was too ill to go, so, at the last minute, my mother decided to go also and take him away from London. So we set off for some vague address in Bakewell, Derbyshire. Families in safe areas were ordered to take in evacuees and, in this house, we were resented and made to feel very unwanted. Food, already scarce, was even more so for us. Our mean hostess fed her own family well with the rations intended for us. Within a month we had left and it was years before I ate a Bakewell tart or admitted Derbyshire was beautiful!

Next, we reached an old farm cottage in Bampton, Oxfordshire. Our landlady was a Mrs Tanner, a warm-hearted person who made us welcome with a full meal and a blazing fire - what a difference!

Mrs Tanner was the wife of the local Thatcher. They kept livestock for their own food, as country people did then. Despite being Cockneys, we had come from an immaculate home with electricity, hot water, a bathroom and an indoor toilet. We now found ourselves in this warm, well-fed friendly cottage with friendly bed bugs, kids with head lice, a tin bath hanging on the garden wall and a bucket'n'plank loo in the yard. The loo had a lovely picture of "Bubbles", the Pears advert, hanging on its wall - very tasteful.

On Thursdays, all doors and windows were tightly closed whilst we waited the coming of the Dung men; two gentlemen wearing leather aprons emptied everyone's buckets into their cart. What a job!

My brother was very much worse, skinny and weak with breathing difficulties. He spent time in hospital and mum stayed with him. Mrs Tanner treated me like yet another grandchild and I soon settled happily into my new way of life. Mum asked her if she would take me to the town, a bus ride away, to get new shoes and some clothes. Off we went on what was literally a shop-lifting spree. I was both frightened and excited and sworn to secrecy. Mrs T. kept the money and the coupons and mum was thrilled to have got so many bargains. I never told her! But, when I wore my new shoes or my finery, I always dreaded someone asking me questions. I laid awake at night rehearsing my answers. I was never tempted to try it myself. When I see Travellers, kids, I often think "that was me once". After a year of my idea of heaven, mum decided to return to London to see if the hospitals there could help little Eddie. We got back just in time for The Battle of Britain; I'm glad they waited for us. I was so homesick for Bampton that I even contemplated running away to try to go back. Although I settled down, I still think of Bampton as my home and, after 63 years, I still go back for holidays. Just one year made such an impression on me. It was so carefree and I enjoyed some of the jobs with the animals.

During the time we were away, my dad had carried on with his job and Fire-fighting in London. Our home had gone, so we stayed with an Aunt until we got somewhere to live. Empty houses were requisitioned by the Authorities, who then allocated them to those who needed them. My parents applied for a house, explaining that Eddie needed to be near a hospital, but they were told that, as the father was not in the forces, they did not qualify for accommodation. They were heartbroken as a doctor had informed them that, without a decent home, Eddie would not live long. My father insisted on volunteering for any of the forces, but was once again declared unfit. Eventually, after mum worried them every day, we were given two rooms in a small terraced house, sharing a toilet with another family. There was no bathroom and we were made to feel almost like traitors with frequent remarks directed at my dad. Even at school the teachers singled us out with "anyone who's father is not in the forces will not be getting this" - this could be milk or some other treat we regarded as a luxury. One teacher was so obsessed that today she would be considered mentally unbalanced. A project she gave us 10year olds was to devise tortures for Hitler or any German unlucky enough to survive a plane crash. I cheated and copied one from a book.

Our shelter was now a reinforced cellar. It was dry and spacious and, during heavy bombing, some of our neighbours joined us and we had what I considered to be jolly times together. Food was in very short supply; although we had ration books, there was not always enough food in the shops. I was sent to queue up, then mum would take over while I queued again at the next shop with food, where we repeated the pattern. I once reached the counter before mum got there; we were waiting for eggs. I got 4 eggs in a paper bag and, as I left the shop, I dropped them. Carefully carrying them back to the counter I told the assistant she had given me cracked eggs. I was shouted at and called a lying, nasty little girl but managed to obtain 4 replacement eggs. I just could not have told my mum I'd broken them.

A neighbour of ours was a fishmonger, poulterer and game merchant. He sometimes had rabbits for sale; they were always skinned and usually in pieces. After bombing raids, there were often cats straying where their home was destroyed, or dogs wandering about the streets. We think our fishmonger solved this problem. I believe most women realised the meat wasn't quite what they wanted but had to have some meat to put in the stew. Luckily we had a vicious wild cat I had taken in and being so spiteful, she lived a long and happy life, occasionally bringing home a piece of fish. How she managed this I don't know. Could it have been bait for a lesser cat?

School was rather a shambles. We had our classes in a shelter, that is 2 or 3 classes at a time; as there was insufficient room for all the children we had mornings or afternoons only. The other class we shared our shelter with always had such interesting lessons! I feel awful about admitting this but the education system was so easy to play truant from. If you didn't turn up they assumed you'd been bombed or sent away to safety. A couple of friends and I used to ignore the danger of air raids and go to the centre of London where we could be sure of meeting American servicemen. We begged for gum or chocolate from them, then had to eat or hide it before going home. At no time did we ever think of how our families would have no idea where we were if we never came back. It's rather frightening really. Our excursions came to an end when, on a very wet day, mum came to meet me from school with an umbrella. After waiting until all the kids had left, she went in to see our teacher who said I had not attended for some time and thought I had gone back to Bampton. Boy, did I get a beating! She was as vicious as my cat but not as lovable.

One night we were in our shelter when a neighbour called us to come out to see the incredible amount of German planes that our boys were shooting down. We stood outside in the street and cheered, linking arms and dancing. The next day we heard on the radio that they had not been shot down but were a new weapon - the Doodle Bug. From then on I understood fear. I don't know what triggered it but I joined the ranks of the old dears who swore they recognised one of ours or one of theirs. I henceforth scrambled to get my pets into the shelter as soon as we heard the siren. My dog soon learnt this and was first down; her hearing being keener than ours, she could hear the siren in the next town before ours. Soon we had Rockets. There was no warning with them. The first one we saw was on a summer's evening when my friends and self were practising the Tango on the street corner. We were singing "Pedro the Fisherman" as a whine came from above our heads, followed by a cloud of dust and then the impact and sound of the explosion. Four screaming dancers rushed for shelter. We knew many of the people who had been killed or injured and it seemed too close to us. It never had been safe but we hadn't noticed it before, now I did, worrying, "where did that one land?" "Is it near dad's shop or near our relations?" I guess I'd grown up but it was so quick. I was twelve, learning to tango and worrying about our family. I decided I would join the Land Army as soon as they would let me; I'd heard one no longer needed parents' permission. This was not anything to do with the war effort. I simply wanted my life back in beloved Bampton. My feelings were mixed when the war ended, no more terrifying Rockets but trapped in London with no chance of getting away until I married!

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.

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jenny Christian of the 2nd Air Division Memorial Library in conjunction with BBC Radio Norfolk on behalf of Frank L Scott and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Part one

I was eighteen, going on nineteen, when the storm clouds of war started to gather. Life was good ; a happy home, loving and devoted parents and family, sound job prospects and a variety of interesting hobbies and out-door pursuits. All this adding up to an enjoyable and hopefully peaceful future. Life was indeed worth living!

My dreams were shattered on that morning in early September 1939 when the sirens sounded throughout the land warning 'Englanders' of an immediate air attack when the suspected might of the German Luftwaffe would rain down upon us.

Most people that could, and were able, ran for cover long before the mournful wail of the penetrating sound of the air-raid sirens had faded away.

My family consisting of Mother and Father, two sisters, three younger brothers and an elderly Grandfather took to our heels and made for the conveniently placed 'Anderson' shelter dug into the back garden. I can't remember the exact measurements of that particular type, but I do know that to house nine adults for any length of time, as it eventually did for several months to come, has to be experienced to be believed. Not only was it very uncomfortable in such a confined space but there was always a fear of the unknown horrors of bombing raids.

Within the shelter, there was the cheerful chatter to keep up our spirits but outside there was an uncanny silence which was broken some time later by the ALL CLEAR signal. A sound we got to love and hear. Nothing happened that particular day and we remained unscathed.

The sound of that very first warning at about 11 o'clock on Sunday 3rd September 1939 will long remain in the memories of many folk, the elderly and not so young, and was a discord we all learnt to live with and to rejoice endlessly to the welcome sound of the ALL CLEAR.

This situation continued for many months with warnings of imminent raids which came to nothing. So began the 'phoney war' as it became to be known. Because of the continuous interruptions caused daily when enemy aircraft were unable to penetrate the air defences, spotters were placed on rooftops of factories, offices, power stations etc., to warn workers only when there were signs of impending danger.

Unfortunately, this was rather short lived and many large towns and cities suffered badly when the German High Command decided to step up and concentrate on a more devastating and annihilating blow, in particular to the civilian population.

My personal experience of this period of time was when taking a girlfriend to a cinema in Elephant and Castle area of London and to be informed by the Manager of the cinema that a heavy bombing raid was taking place in the dock area of the East End. Not that that had much significance to a couple in the back row, who continued there until the bombing got worse and the Manager informed those remaining that the cinema was about to close.

Most people that were able to went underground that evening and it wasn't until the ALL CLEAR sounded in the early morning at daylight that they came out again and went about their business.

Living not far from this area, my first thoughts were for my family and I wished to check on their welfare as soon as possible. Because of the ferocity of the raid, there was much local damage and fires were raging everywhere, accounting for endless lengths of firemans' hosepipes to be trampled over in search of public transport which, by that time, was non-existent. Having escorted my girlfriend home which, unfortunately, was in the opposite direction to the one I would have wished to get me home quickly, but eventually I made it and found them safe and sound. A block of flats nearby had taken a direct hit during the raid.

This signalled the beginning of endless night after night bombing raids on London and 'Wailing Willie' would sound without fail at dusk about the time that mother would be putting the finishing touches to the picnic basket that the family trundled to the garden air-raid shelter. Not too often, but some nights for a change of scenery, or further company, we would go to a communal shelter but must admit that we all felt most secure at 'ours'.

So, life went on, come what may, raids or no raids. All went of to work the next morning trusting and hoping that our work place would still be there. Battered or not, running repairs would be performed and it would be 'business as usual'.

My father, being in the newspaper distribution trade and a night worker would clamber out of the shelter in the early hours but would return occasionally during the night to see that all was well. He would also drop in the morning papers which were often read beneath the glow of the searchlight beams raking the darkened sky in search of enemy aircraft. An additional item on one particular raid was when a nearby gasometer near the Oval cricket ground was hit and a whole cascade of aluminium flakes came drifting down in the light of the search light beams.

Being in 'Civvy Street' at that time, and in what was considered a reserved occupation with a company of manufacturing chemists, my only contact with the war and ongoing battles in various theatres of war was through the press. It was not until that little brown envelope appropriately marked O.H.M.S. fell through the letter-box did my involvement with the military begin.

"You will report" it began, and so I did to the local Labour exchange when it set the ball rolling with regard to medicals, which arm of the service, date of call up etc. I also remember that my company deducted my pay that day. Something I never forgave them for and therefore had no wish to rejoin them on release from the forces.

Came the day, or rather it very nearly didn't! One of the most frightening and devastating attacks on London came that night. The railway station that I had to report to for transport to camp had been put out of action and I can remember clearly seeing passenger carriages hanging onto the roads from railway bridges. Plan 'B' was immediately put into operation and road transport was made available to take us "rookies" to the next station down the line.

The Military Training Camp on the borders of Salisbury Plain became home for the next six weeks when one went through all the motions of becoming a fighting soldier, with discipline and turn-out being the Order of the Day. Whatever one says about Training Sergeants I think our Squad must have struck lucky because we decided to have a whip round and buy him a parting gift before our leaving camp and being drafted to a searchlight mob. Thus ended basic training in the Royal Artillery.

The next venue was over the border; a searchlight training camp on the West coast of Scotland. Within a very short time and very little action, boredom set in and a Regimental office notice calling for volunteers for Airborne Divisions prompted a few of my mates and I to put our names forward. Knowing the outcome of some of their eventual encounters in later battles I am thankful now that an earlier posting took me to a newly formed Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment of which I am justly proud.

Whilst serving with a searchlight Battery Headquarters in Suffolk, apart from the usual flak and hostile fire being an every day occurrence, Cupid's dart took a hand when the A.T.S. became part of the Establishment and a cute little red-head arrived on site. A war-time romance followed but a further posting from that unit took me to another part of the country. As the saying goes "Love will find a way" and it did for we kept in touch until distance and timing took its toll. That was over 50 years ago and through a twist of fate, a news item that appeared in a national newspaper put us in touch again.

My Regiment, the 165 H.A.A. Regt. R.A. with the fully mobile 3.7in gun had many different locations during the build up to D Day but it was fortunate enough to complete its full mobilisation for overseas service in a pleasant area on the outskirts of London. This suited me fine as it was but a short train journey to my home and providing there was no call to duty I would take the opportunity of going A.W.O.L. and dropping in on my folks for a chat and a pint at the local. However, I always made a point of getting back in time for reveille and no one was the wiser. It was also decided about that time that every man in the Regiment should be able to drive a vehicle before proceeding overseas so that was another means of getting up town for a period of time.

Inevitably all good things come to an end and we received our "Marching Orders" to proceed in convoy to the London Docks. The weather at that time was worsening putting all the best laid plans 'on hold'. Although restrictions as regards personnel movements were pretty tight some local leave was allowed. It would have been possible for me to see my folks just once more before heading into the unknown but having said my farewells earlier felt I just couldn't go through that again.

Part Two

With the enormous numbers of vehicles and military equipment arriving in the marshalling area and a continuous downpour of rain it wasn't long before we were living in a sea of mud and getting a foretaste of things to come.

To idle away the hours whilst awaiting to hear the shout "WE GO", time was spent playing cards (for the last remaining bits of English currency), much idle gossip, and I would suspect thinking about those we were leaving behind. God knows when, or if, we would be seeing them again. By now this island we were about to leave, with its incessant Luftwaffe bombing raids and the arrival of the 'Flying Bomb', had by now become a 'front line' and it was good to be thinking that we were now going to do something about it !!

All preparations were made for the 'off'. Pay Parade and an issue of 200 French francs (invasion style), and then to 'Fall In' again for an issue of the 24hr ration pack (army style), vomit bags and a Mae West (American style). Just time to write a quick farewell letter home before boarding a troopship.

Very soon it was 'anchors away' and I think I must have dozed off about that point for I awoke to find we were hugging the English coast and were about to change course off the Isle of Wight where we joined the great armada of ships of all shapes and sizes.

It wasn't too long before the coastline of the French coast became visible, although I did keep looking over my shoulder for the last glimpse of my homeland. The whole sea-scape by now being filled with an endless procession of vessels carrying their cargos of fighting men, the artillery, tanks, plus all the other essentials to feed the hungry war machine.

The exact role of my particular arm of the Royal Artillery was for the Ack-Ack protection of air-fields and consisted of Headquarters and three Batteries, each Battery having two Troops of four 3.7in guns, totalling some 24 guns in all. This role was to change dramatically as we were soon to discover. In the Order of Battle we would not therefore be called into action until a foothold had been successfully gained and position firmly held in NORMANDY.

The first night at sea was spent laying just off the coast at Arromanches (Gold Beach) where some enemy air activity was experienced and a ship moored alongside unfortunately got a H.E. bomb in its hold. Orders came through to disembark and unloading continued until darkness fell. An exercise that had no doubt been overlooked and therefore not covered during previous years of intensive training was actually climbing down the side of a high-sided troopship in order to get aboard, in my case, and American LCT.

This accomplished safely, with every possible chance of falling between both vessels tossing in a heaving sea, there followed a warm "Welcome Aboard" from a young cheerful freshfaced, gum chewing, cigar smoking Yank. I believe I sensed the smell of coffee and do'nuts!!

Making sure that the assigned vehicle for my entry into Normandy and beyond was loaded aboard I settled down, anticipating WHAT, but surveying the panoramic view as we approached the sandy shore by now littered with the remains of the earlier major onslaught.

Undoubtedly one couldn't have been too aware of the incoming and outgoing tides as the water was far too deep at the beach-head and found it necessary to cruise around until late into the evening before it was decided to make for the shore come what may!! By then it was time to join the other members of the regiment's advance party in the Humber staff car which included driver, a radio operator, the C.O. and Adjutant.

Following the dropping of the anchor, the loading ramp was immediately lowered to the accompaniment of the sound of the engines breaking into life. I think at that point the two officers became aware that we were still in 'deep water' for they decided to climb onto to roof of the 'Z' vehicle as it proceeded down the ramp. In spite of seeing the sea water gradually climbing half way up the windscreen the O.Rs feet remained reasonably dry and we made the shore with the aid of the four-wheel drive.

At the first peaceful opportunity it was essential to shed the vehicle of its waterproofing materials and extend the exhaust pipe. The canvas parts of this exercise I decided to keep, as I thought that they would be useful (time permitting) for lining ones fox-hole, which I later found to be ideal.

My ancient tatty looking 1944 diary informs me that I slept in a field and awoke at 05.30hrs to a glorious sunny day, that I washed in a stream,sampled my 24hr ration pack, saw my first dead jerry and that General De Gaulle passed the Assembly Point.

I must admit that without the aid of my diary that I managed to keep throughout the war (something that I could have been very severely reprimanded for had it been known at the time) and the treasured letters that my Mother retained until her dying day, I could not possibly remember all the most intimate details of my soldiering days.

Returning to those early entries, whilst enjoying the pleasure of a quick splash in a neighbouring stream I became aware of some girlish giggling in the adjoining bushes and felt that this was an early indication that the natives were friendly.

We proceeded inland, the Sappers having done their stuff and prepared safe lanes amid endless rows of tape with the deathly skull and crossbones indicating ACHTUNG MINEN, it was decided to set up Regimental H.Q. in the area of Beny-sur-mer.

During a check halt en route I noticed that a small area of corn a few yards into a vast cornfield had been disturbed. Taking a chance and feeling inquisitive I decided to investigate. And there it was the ENEMY, but proved not to be too much of a problem. How long he had been there I do not know. He was lying on his back, his feet heavily bandaged no doubt through endless marching, his Jack Boots placed beside his body. I also notice hurriedly that his ring finger was missing? Someone's Son, someone's Father, someone's brother, someone's liebe; what a ghastly business war is !!

It occurred to me that all my observations of German manhood from the then current movies and other sources gave one the impression that they were a somewhat super human race; six foot tall, blonde and blue-eyed. That is what the Fuhrer had aspired to no doubt but I was rather taken aback to see the first column of German prisoners passing by, some short, fat, bald, spectacled etc. etc. a straggly pathetic bunch, tired, weary but some still with that aggressive look in their eyes, some glad that at least the war and the fighting were over for them.

Several moves to different locations were made in the ensuing weeks, also being 2nd Army troops, we were at the beck and call of any Corps or AGRA needing support and CAEN had to be taken at all cost.

Being on H.Q. staff one of my 'in the field' roles was to travel with the Staff car into the forward areas and reconnoitre sites prior to the deployment of the heavy artillery. Here I would remain until the last of the units had passed through that check-point with the expectation of being picked up sometime later when the whole procedure would continue again with a type of leap-frogging action.

Following days of constant heavy shelling and later to watch a 1000 bomber raid from the outskirts of that well defended town of Caen it finally fell. Having dug ourselves in and around an orchard in the Giberville area, east of Caen, some late evening mortar fire sadly killed our Second-in-Command (Major Finch) when the shell struck an apple tree under which the officers were playing a game of cards. Here again my diary notes "heavily shelled at 22.00hrs. 2nd i/c killed, Lt. Quartermaster, Padre and Signals Officer wounded." The following day we buried the 2nd i/c and felt the terrific loss to the Regiment. Several years later through the very good services of the War Graves Commission I was able to trace and eventually visit his grave lying in peace in Bayeux cemetery.

Passing through the ruined and by now almost deserted corridor in Caen I stopped to retrieve a slightly charred but intact wall plate bearing the towns name from the still burning rubble. Somehow it had survived the crushing bombardment and would now protect it as a war souvenir. This memento I eventually carried through France, Belgium into Holland and on to the borders of Germany. Here I was lucky in a draw for U.K. leave and returned home to family bringing the wall plate for safe keeping where it continued to survive the continuing London blitz.

Sadly several years later, and happily married, my wife during a dusting session knocked it from its focal point and it broke into several pieces. I could have wept, remembering its passage through time but my good sense of humour saw the funny side of it all. Having put it together again it does have the appearance of having 'been through the wars' but still has a place of honour on my kitchen wall. Have thought over the years that I should perhaps return it to its rightful owner, but just where does one start?

Returning to the ongoing war in Europe it appeared that things were going as well as could be expected on all fronts. There were occasions when having dug a comfortable hole in the ground word would come through "we're moving again". There were no complaints as such if it was felt it brought the end of hostilities a little closer. It became a bit tough when this could happen sometimes three times in one day and with the approach of winter the earth was getting harder all the time.

It was comforting, however, to hear that the Germans were retreating down the Vire-flers road. Again my old diary reveals the path taken by the Regiment from landing in Normandy through the Altegamme on the North bank of the river Elbe, Hamburg. It gives dates and places and highlights the fact that we were forever crossing borders e.g. France into Belgium, Belgium into Holland, Holland back into Belgium, Belgium into Holland, Holland into Germany where we remained.

Its mobility can perhaps be made clearer in an extract from the Regtl. Citation which quotes
"The unit has been deployed almost continuously in the forward areas, and the Headquarters and Batteries have frequently been under shell and mortar fire. During this time the Regiment has not only fought in an A.A. role but has been detailed to other tasks not normally the lot of an A.A. unit. These have included frequent employment in a medium artillery role, action in an anti-tank screen, and the hasty organisation of A.A. personnel into infantry sub-units to repel enemy counter-attacks. All tasks have met with conspicuous success. The unit has responded speedily, cheerfully and efficiently to every demand made on it. The unit is one where morale is very high indeed and which can confidently be given any task".

Following the distinctive role played during the N.W. Europe campaign the Regiment was awarded a Battle Honour and its Commanding Officer a D.S.O.

Depending on the impending battle plan the various Batteries would be assigned to individual tasks i.e.

275/165 Bty u/c Gds. Armd. Div. for grd. shooting.
198/165 Bty deployed in A.A. role def. conc. area.
317/165 Bty deployed in Anti-tank role.

All tasks having been successfully completed would again move as a Regiment under command Guards Armoured Division to support a new attack.

A day to be remembered was the arrival of bread after some 40 days without. I think it only amounted to one slice per man but what a relief after nibbling on hard biscuits for so long. The men to be pitied were those with dentures who automatically soaked it in their tea or cocoa (gunfire) before consuming.

Another welcome treat was the arrival of the mobile bath and clothing unit in late August '44. It was about that time that I heard a steam whistle indicating that the railroad was back in action.

When the situation allowed a truck would take a party of men to the nearest B and C Unit which consisted of a couple of large marquee tents adjoining. In one you would completely disrobe and proceed along duck-boards to the shower area. Having enjoyed this primitive delight and dried off you would then gather vest, pants, shirt and sox then queue to be sized up by the detailed attendant in charge, to be issued with hopefully something appropriate to ones stature. It didn't always work to ones liking and caused much amusement in the changing tent where swaps occasionally took place.

The unit did however serve its purpose at the time but things became more pleasant when one could retain their own gear and could sometimes get it attended to by a local admirer.

Four moves in as many days took us into Brussels where we were given a rousing reception. Our vehicles were clambered onto from all directions by the thronging crowd, showering us with hugs and kisses, flowers, and a very brief moment to sample a glass or two or wine. No time to stop, unfortunately, and soon to depart with a small recce party en route for Nijmegan. By now things were getting slightly uncomfortable having been attacked from the air during a night in the woods and the main body of the Regiment attacked in the corridor at Veghel.

Here our guns were deployed in an Anti/tank role, field role and CB role. Several troops were provided for attack to recapture the village of Apenhoff. A tiger tank was engaged by one gun and very successful CB and concentrations fired on enemy gun areas and infantry. It was thought that casualties sustained were justified as the attack resulted in the capture of 76 prisoners, one anti-tank gun and a considerable number of enemy dead, mostly to the West of the village where most of our men finished up and where a certain amount of mortar fire was brought down upon them.

The following day the main body of the Regiment arrived in Nijmegan and were deployed in an Ack-Ack role, minus one Troop still in MTB role. It was recorded at the time that on several occasions the guns had been deployed further forward than any other guns in the Second Army and in the case of the bridge over the Escaut Canal at Overpelt it was considered that the fire provided was one of the chief factors in the bridge being captured intact.

It was during a return to Belgium for a break just before Christmas 1944 that we had the good fortune to be billeted for a few days with a wonderful family consisting of Mother and Father, six daughters and two sons. The childrens' ages ranging between possibly eighteen and three. It was the time of celebrating St. Nicholas and homely pleasures had long been forgotten as regards a roof overhead, surrounding walls, and to mix with warm and friendly people. The chance to sit at a dining table on a firm and comfortable chair, food on a plate instead of a dirty old mess-tin were simple things to be appreciated beyond words and all were saddened when it was time to return into the line.

A returning Don, R would often bring little notes written in understandable English but as the lines of communication lengthened so contact diminished.

Some 40 years later, prior to a visit to The Netherlands with a party of Normandy Veterans, I decided to write to the Burgomeister of the small village of Beverst giving him full details of the family and hoping by chance that at least one member of the large family would have survived the war and perhaps was still living in the Limburg area of Belgium.

It was beyond belief that within ten days I had a letter from the very girl, Mariette, who had sent the odd letter to me and to this day still have them in my possession. We had so much to tell each other, on her side that all her sisters were married with children, and that one of her brothers who was three years old during the war was now a priest in Louvain.

As the conducted tour at the time of visiting did not go into the Limburg area of Belgium, it was arranged that a small party from the family circle would travel by minibus and that we would hopefully meet up at a suggested time in the town of Eindhoven in Holland. There was much rejoicing when the timing was spot on and a very brief meeting with an exchange of gifts took place before it was time to clamber back onto the coach.

Over the years when visiting the Continent we meet whenever possible. I have since met all surviving members of the family, visiting their homes and meeting their children. At one of the locations a field a short distance away was pointed out to me where Hitler, a Corporal at the time, had camped during the 1914-18 war.

During one conversation I asked Mariette how the family had fared during the German occupation. She told me that on one occasion a German Officer had knocked on the door requesting the family to accommodate some German troops. The Father replied that he had eight children which he was supporting and had no room for them and luckily they departed. She went on the tell me that when the Germans were pushed out of the village and the English and the Americans moved into the area her Father gladly accepted a few English soldiers to stay, suggesting the family would double up into a couple of rooms. We still find plenty to talk about over the years when corresponding and on meeting up.

In further praise of my old Regiment it is on record that before June '44 was out, a deputation of senior officers visited the unit to learn why, and how, they were usually the first guns in the line to report "READY" and higher formations were calling for their support as a unit.

The Order of March for the operation "Garden", the Northward dash to join up with the Airborne troop was headed (1) Guards Armoured Division, (2) A.A. Group (165 H.A.A. Regt.) leading. This alone should rank a citation for the 3.7in A.A. gun. Second in the Order of March on what must be one of the most daring and spectacular assaults in history.

The 3.7s when used in their field role were fired from positions amongst the infantry and that having no gun shield the layers positions were untenable. During the closing battle for Arnhem they were able to give covering fire throughout the night withdrawal. The 3.7s with their 11 miles range were amongst the very few guns available with sufficient range to cover the flanks of the 1st Airborne at Arnhem, and for a long time there was talk of the unit being permitted to carry the honoured Pegasus on their sleeve.

It was during the withdrawal of the survivors of the Battle of Arnhem, and watching the war-torn paras filing back through Hell's Highway, that I spotted and had a quick chat with a couple of my old mates that had proudly volunteered with me on that fateful day in June '41. In a flash I though "there, but for the grace of God go I". Should I have in fact survived that horrendous and tragic battle, and where are they now I wonder?

Word that hostilities had ceased came through whilst in a little German village called Tesperhude on the North bank of the Elbe, V.E. DAY, the war in Europe had ended. Time to celebrate. All Other Ranks were invited into the Officer's mess where 'issue rum' was being served up in half-pint glasses. This was a complete change to previous issues when, during inclement weather the rum ration would have to be taken in a mug of tea. Pushing all protocol aside it was time to let our hair down and enjoy. It was suggested that a bit of music and song would be in order and the question was asked as to who could play a piano accordion. I gave up the idea of not volunteering on this special occasion and said that I could, having had some professional lessons in my youth.

A search party set off down the street and a 'squeeze box' was produced and promptly placed in position. By then the rum was taking hold and I can remember getting through two verses of "Home on the range" before collapsing over backwards to a cacophony of sound as the bellows extended across my chest. Can't say the C.O. and other Officers were too pleased with the musical performance and I felt the effects of the vapours for a few days following. I made up my mind there and then that I never wished to experience the taste of Nelson's blood ever again, as I also felt about the thought of never wishing to see spam and bully beef, but time is a great healer?

Release from the service being on an 'Age and Service' basis meant that I possibly had another year or so to serve before being discharged. I would have been more than content to remain in the area of Hamburg until my release papers arrived, but unfortunately it was not to be. An urgent War Office posting, I was told, brought me back to England and a spell at Woolwich Barracks which I found most discouraging and ungratifying.

I was to join a newly formed contingent of mostly new recruits about to depart for the Far East, by mid November '45 I was on a troopship bound for Bombay. Christmas 1945 was spent in the Royal Artillery Transit Camp at Deolali where I spent a few weeks before entraining and travelling across India to Calcutta. It wasn't quite the Orient Express for comfort and cuisine, and I can remember being fired upon by rampaging dacoits at one point.

Several more weeks were spent in a transit camp in Calcutta experiencing all the delights of Chowringee and thereabouts – felt quite the pukka sahib at times before word came through that we would be sailing for Rangoon the following day.

Going aboard the S.S 'City of Canterbury' there was the usual rush for hammocks and best positions on deck. Arriving in Rangoon I was happy to receive my first letter from home in seven weeks and was a relief to be sure. I had still not reached journeys end and it was not until mid February 1946 that I joined my intended unit, a Field Regiment, on the borders of Mandalay in Burma.

I was finally homeward bound by the late summer of '46 to enjoy three months overseas leave and a return to civilian life.

Looking back over the years in the forces there were some good times and some exceedingly bad times but having come through it all reasonably fit and healthy I feel the WAR YEARS have shown me the true value of life and that, in retrospect, I feel proud not to have missed this experience of a lifetime.

Written in March 1994.

Infant on The Home Front

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Directional road signs were removed.

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

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

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

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

to which a wag had added:

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

and another:

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

and modified:

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

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

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

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

There were rumours soon that Croydon Airport had been attacked.

That was to be the first of many raids.

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

A bit like flat-pack furniture.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It all became rather snug.

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

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

But what about the plight of any child left behind?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A profitable bomb.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was another period without attendance at a school.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Epilogue

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mother and grandmother survived until their eighties.

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

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

What happened to me after that is another story.

Anthony Mundy 8 December 2003

Infant on The Home Front

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Directional road signs were removed.

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

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

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

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

to which a wag had added:

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

and another:

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

and modified:

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

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

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

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

There were rumours soon that Croydon Airport had been attacked.

That was to be the first of many raids.

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

A bit like flat-pack furniture.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It all became rather snug.

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

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

But what about the plight of any child left behind?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A profitable bomb.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was another period without attendance at a school.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Epilogue

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mother and grandmother survived until their eighties.

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

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

What happened to me after that is another story.

Anthony Mundy 8 December 2003

On 6th January I became 20 years of age. I had a lovely day, receiving cards and letters from many people and the sweetest telegram from Les. The day culminated in a birthday banquet with Rita at Pam’s Pantry.

During February Les had 14 whole days leave. H.Q. magnanimously granted me five days furlough so we were able to dash up to Birmingham for a few days. Upon our return we talked long about getting married. Les said he felt we should wait until the end of the war, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were husband and wife. I was wildly happy and resolved to write to Mother and Pop to inform them of our hopes and plans.

After his leave finished, I wrote to Mother and Pop and told them how deeply in love we were and that we wanted to get married on hi s next leave. I needed their permission and their blessing, and I implored them to give it.

On the 23rd February, I wrote that I felt about as happy as a fish out of water. Not only had we just come through one of the worst nights imaginable, a visit with a vengeance from the Luftwaffe, but I also received a note from home written by Mother, saying no, they certainly would not give permission for me to marry before I reached 21. My spirits plunged to absolute zero. I then had the difficult task of writing to Les with the news that our marriage could not take place for many many months.

The air raids were resuming with renewed intensity and frequency, but the enemy were sustaining heavy losses due to our magnificent anti-aircraft barrage. On the news, M.T.Bs had been in action in the channel and I felt so anxious.

Eventually a letter came from Les, saying although he was disappointed, he respected my parents’ views on the subject of marriage and perhaps it was all for the best.

Further letters from him told of the hectic times they were having. He was now based at Lowestoft, and the radio news seemed to be constantly mentioning actions on that part of the coastline. I feared so much for him. Then one night there was a terrible action off Ymuiden and shortly afterwards I got a telephone call from him saying he was in London on six days leave. I dashed happily up to see him but oh how awful was his news. His ship had been very badly smashed up, the bridge had received a direct hit, killing or injuring all the officers, one had died in his arms. He brought the poor battered vessel back, stern-first, through a minefield. His terrible experiences showed in his tired, sad face. But thank God he had survived and he was here with me for a few precious days. We saw each other every available moment.

All too soon his short leave was up and I again thought my heart would break when we said goodbye. What was he going back to? When would we meet again? The War had gone on far too long, if only it would end and we could start to really live.

Unfortunately this prospect seemed more remote than ever and we were getting some quite terrific raids. When I was cowering in the hut listening to the sickening screaming of the bombs and the barking of the guns, I though of Les who was enduring far greater dangers.

There was tremendous activity at H.Q. particularly in G — we knew something was in the wind. Les sent a wire telling me to cease writing until I got his new address. He was on the move again. Then at last came the news they were picking up a brand new ship and would still be in Home Waters. He was at Lowestoft awaiting drafting to the new boat.

I had a 48 hour pass which I spent in Birmingham. It was the first o time I’d seen my parents since they’d refused their permission for me to marry and the short leave did give us the opportunity to clear the air. Mother was quite reasonable about it and explained she had nothing against Les personally, he seemed honest and dependable but marriage was a very big step and was something I should enter into seriously and it should be entirely my own responsibility. She didn’t want me going to her if it didn’t work out, asking why she had given her permission. I could see her point. “You’re very young” she added “It won’t hurt you to wait until you’re 21 and then the onus is entirely on you”. The 48 hours I felt had made things better between us and I journeyed back with perhaps a little more understanding of her reasoning.

A few days later I received word from Les saying he was at a Signals School in Petersfield for a few weeks on a course. As Petersfield is only a 2 hour run from Waterloo on the Southern Railway I was able to visit him there. He was very tired and unhappy. He said the course he was on was something to do with Japanese and he had a strong idea he would be sent to the Far East, based at Golden Hind, which was Australia. He said he had been through so much, seen lads his own age killed or terribly injured, he seemed unable to look on the bright side any more. He felt the future too uncertain to contemplate.

Back at work, the pace hadn’t slackened and we seemed hardly able to draw breath. Night duties and duty typist stints wore me out, not to mention platoon evenings and hut cleaning activities thrown in.

At the end of May, I received a letter from Les to say his course was completed and he was leaving Petersfield. But for the time being, at any rate, he was not going foreign. He was in fact returning to M.T.Bs but did not know exactly where. He said there was a new boat waiting for him and I prayed fate would be kind.

On 6th June the news we had been waiting for and living for broke upon the world. It was D-Day. The second front had opened. British and American forces had landed in France in Normandy. Operation Overlord had begun. All day long, squadrons of planes droned over Uxbridge almost continuously filling the air with their sound. At H.Q. we were frantically busy and my thoughts, needless to say, were with Les. Just where was he, amongst all this. The whole operation was perfectly co-ordinated and early reports were that it was all going extremely well.

I finally received a letter from Les, written 2 days after D-day. It contained little news except to say that he was on M.T.B.753, a brand new D-class.

That night, Hitler played a dirty trick and launched his secret weapon. It was a pilotless aircraft. They were like winged huge bombs fitted with an engine. They were launched from a site on the other side of the channel, the motor carried them so far, and then, when it cut out, they fell to earth and exploded. Our Intelligence had known about this evil device and it had the code name Diver. The motors could only carry the bombs for a limited distance before they cut out, but London was well within that range and so most of them achieved their target, the area around the capital. They became known as Doodlebugs or Flying Bombs but officially they were P.A.Cs — Pilotless Aircraft — and they quickly became the bane of our lives. They would come chuntering over — and you would hear the distinctive, almost spluttering sound, as the wretched thing droned on. Then it would stop. Complete silence. You would hold your breath waiting for the sickening bang. They couldn’t be aimed with any degree of accuracy so they fell anywhere, quite indiscriminately, and claimed many lives and wreaked much damage.

Les wrote that his hopes for leave had been dashed and it now looked unlikely he would be home for months. I was able to adopt a philosophical attitude. The main thing, after all, was that he remained safe.

The flying bomb raids were gaining in intensity. On 8th August there was a big naval action off St. Nazaire and once more my stomach churned with fear.

September arrived and we were very busy at H.Q., moving guns and gun-sites now that, mercifully, PAC activity seemed to have ceased.

A letter arrived from Les to say he’d been moved around a lot of late, but was now settled, he hoped. After operating from a Normandy base, he was once again on our side of the water.

On 10th September, we could hear the distant thundering of the guns which turned out to be a heavy naval bombardment off the coastline of Belgium and Holland. Our land forces on the continent were encountering fierce resistance and we realised our hopes that it might all be over by Christmas were a little premature.

Hitler launched a new secret weapon upon us, which was a long range rocket. These again had a limited range, but, like the doodlebugs, London fell within that scope. They were even more terrifying than the P.A.Cs because you got no warning whatsoever of their approach. Just the sickening crunch when they landed.

The folks at home seemed to be doing all right. Pop was busy on his allotment, digging for victory. They didn’t appear to know anything about the rocket attacks. Funnily enough there was never any mention of them on the radio news.

We were definitely winding down in G. It was like the aftermath of a hurricane. Where we had a short time ago been rushed off our feet, we were now gently ticking over. We had a wonderful time when we weren’t busy, playing cards, making toast and telling jokes. I also used to read aloud to them, sometimes Ghost Stories by M.R.James, but these were not recommended immediately prior to Night Duty.

On the 9th October, Light Coastal Forces were reported as being involved in many battles off the coast of Holland and as I knew that to be Les’s area, I was naturally reduced to a mass of worry again. I was so relieved when he rang me on the 11th so say he was O.K.

Shortly after this I received a phone call to say he was in London and had 13 days leave. During this time we went up to Birmingham. While we were there Les had a good talk with Mother and he must have cleared up a lot of her doubts and misgivings because before we left at the end of our stay, she said she had been doing some serious reconsidering and declared she was now willing for our marriage to take place on Leslie’s next leave. I threw my arms round her neck and almost throttled her. She declared she’d go and see Vicar Hart at St. Paul’s, our local Parish Church, to see what arrangements needed to be made regarding the Banns since we didn’t know just when the date would be. She became quite carried away with enthusiasm, saying as it was to be a small family wedding she could do the food herself and would ask Mrs. Simonds to make a cake. She would also see if she could come up with an idea as to what I could wear. We left on this very happy note and they waved us off in very high spirits.

We were happy to be back in London, making plans and preparations. We were so excited. We asked about Utility Furniture and were told how to go about applying for units which would enable us to buy some of this. I was to try and find us a flat during the next few weeks as Les’s leave had now finished.

Mother wrote that she was pretty sure she could borrow a wedding dress for me. My cousin’s friend had recently got married and was about my size. She was only too pleased to loan me her dress. There wasn’t a head-dress or veil as she had borrowed these herself. It sounded very pretty, white lace over taffeta. My cousins Mary and Gladys had agreed to be my bridesmaids and they had lemon dresses already sorted out. I was thrilled. Queenie Hastie, my married colleague in G, declared I could borrow her veil and head-dress and brought them back from her next visit home. It was a full-length veil edged with lace and the head-dress was white gardenias.

I heard fairly regularly from Les who seemed to fluctuate between Lowestoft, Yarmouth, Belgium and Holland. There was still plenty of activity around our shores and the Little Ships were constantly in the news. Fierce fighting was going on, on land too.

The odd rockets were still coming over and several fell quite near to us, giving us nasty shocks. I was pleased when my 48 hour pass came round and on 7th December I left immediately after Pay Parade.

I had taken home Queenie’s veil and head-dress, carefully packed in a large cardboard box. I tried on the wedding dress and it fitted perfectly. It was so pretty and so too were the lemon dresses that Mary and Gladys were to wear.

That evening, Mother, Pop and I, talked about the Big Event. Mother had been round friends and neighbours who had generously rallied with food coupons and contents from their store cupboards. She had miraculously amassed tins of ham and tongue and fruit. She planned to do a salad meal with cold meats, followed by fruit cocktail and trifle. She had procured sufficient dried fruit from goodness knows where, and Mrs, Simonds had actually made the cake. Only a single layer of course, but we were lucky to have that. She would marzipan and ice it a little nearer the time. Of course ground almonds were unobtainable but soya flour was quite a good substitute with a few drops of almond essence for flavour, and only the top would be iced, but, with a white frill round the sides, I was sure it would look perfect.

Mother had sorted out no end of household items which she said were surplus to her requirements and I left at the end of my 48 hours, feeling a great deal had been achieved towards our wonderful day.

Normally in mid-December, thought s of Christmas predominated all else but not this year. I seemed unable to think of anything other than my coming wedding. And then, on the 22nd I had the most amazing luck. I actually found a flat. It was situated at 35 Hilldrop Crescent, Camden Road London N7, and was the top floor in a large Edwardian house. The rooms were large and airy and the rent was 10 shillings a week, well within our means. The house was owned by a Mrs. Kathleen Jemison who said she would keep an eye on it during our absence and would do anything she could to assist us. I couldn’t believe my good fortune and sent a wire to Les telling him the fantastic news.

I was on duty Christmas Day but lunch was very special. We went down to the Camp and had a super meal, all the Christmas trimmings. We tucked in with gusto, and when the pudding was brought in, all ablaze, we cheered heartily.

On the 29th I left Uxbridge to spend my 48 hour pass in Birmingham Mother had sorted out many more articles which she said we could have. Pop joked it would feel like coming home, when they came to visit us, there would be so many familiar things around.

On 31st December I returned to Uxbridge to a very quiet New Year’s Eve. No roistering celebrations this time. Just a fervent hope and prayer that 1945 would bring us Peace and lasting happiness.

When I was 5 being evacuated from Kennington to Devon and before entering the train a label was tied to my collar. The attendant bent over me and while tying the string said "don't lose this or you will never see your family again."

To this day, it is my one horror of war!

Memories of growing up in the London blitz

During the doodlebugs raids, I was Winston Churchill Sunday paperboy.

On one Sunday morning I had knocked on the door of No 10, the door opened. I was just about to hand over the papers when a flying bomb engine cut out. Now this could have meant a lot of things one of which was it coming straight down. The attendant threw the papers in the hall and shut the door, with me inside no.10. Well only just. There was a muffled bang, which meant the bomb was about a mile or so away. In one movement the attendant opened the door had me by the collar then threw me out with a ‘Now f**k off out of No.10’.

So my invitation into a tiny part of the corridors of power was ignominiously short lived.

Another time much about the same period doing the same paper round I had just delivered papers to a big house off Hyde Park corner, opposite the old Bell grave hospital. Again a doodlebug cut out. I dived off my bike into the gutter straight into a dip puddle. I lie there with my hands over my head, elbows over my ears.
After about couple of minutes I could hear laughter. I looked up where three nurses were leaning out of a window, who thought I was funnier than the Marx Brothers. I got up, the front of me soaked. This caused even greater laughter. I got back on my bike peddled over Vauxhall Bridge toward the Oval cricket ground. Yet another flying bomb cut out. I’m not getting off this time to make an idiot of my self the next thing I knew I was peddling with no ground be nigh me. Next the bike hit the ground I came off in a heap but I was all right. When I got to the Oval it was a dreadful scene. Archbishop Tennyson School, which was being used as an Auxiliary Fire Service station had a direct hit. There were many bodies. Much too bad to try to describe The A.F.S were considered a joke at the beginning of the blitz, but not at the end. They were some of the bravest men and women in a time of a lot of brave men and women!

My mother, Nora, was the bravest person I ever met. Lots of people were afraid in the London blitz but my mum was truly terrified in spite of the fear she never and I mean never let it interfere with the ordinary things she had to do she went work, war work which meant her being away from home for at least two days and nights.
There were quite a few examples of her near schizophrenic attitude to the blitz but the best, I think, was the night we both went to see a film called ‘THE RAINS CAME’ Nora loved going to the pictures.
We got into the Odeon; at Camberwell Green about 5pm saw the first feature then the main picture came on about 6.30.
Now while the ‘The Rains came’ was in black and white it was a big picture, good music and loud. Half way through the film the familiar side came over the picture that the siren had sounded and any one wishing to leave could do so and come back for any other performance, if they held on to their ticket. Mum started to get up to go. I persuaded her to stay, until the very loud earthquake scene.
She dragged me out of my seat saying she thought the cinema was about collapse. When we got out into Cold harbour Lane there was quite a lot going on. The ack-ack was trying to hit the planes and the planes were dropping bombs, luckily not close to us but the shrapnel from the guns was pinging away every where. We sheltered in the Odeon exit door way. In spite of all the chaos that was going on an old 34 tram came chugging up from Camberwell Green. Out ran mum waved down the tram, the driver slowed down enough for us both to get on. We got of at Loughbough junction. As soon as she was off, Nora started to run towards our flats, down Loughbough Road,
There was no way I could keep up with her. When I got to the door of our flat the door was open. I called out to her ‘I’m under here’ She was under a very small kitchen table. Nora felt safe. Rodger Bannister was supposed to have done the 4 minute mile in the fifties, I reckon my mum did it in 1943!

The next memory is a maybe, only a maybe be cause, at times; I can hardly believe it happened.
One dark and cold Sunday morning on my celebrity paper round I had handed in Winston Churchill’s papers at No. Ten and was coming down the stone steps of the Foreign Office, Anthony Eden’s papers, the Foreign Secretary at the time.
I was half whistling half singing and doing a dance down the steps, a song and dance I had seen in a film the afternoon before at the Astoria Brixton. I got on my bike about to ride off when a loud voice shouted’ Stop that infernal row’ I shouted back ‘ You can shut your bleeding ears cant you’ and rode quickly off.
About twenty years later I was in a pub in north London I was telling that tale when an unknown, to me, looked at me and said ‘You lying toe rag’ the bloke accused me of reading a book, he had just read by, Churchill in which he said an errant boy had once told to shut his ears. For all my insistence of innocence the bloke turned nasty, so I never got to find out the name of the book. I got a black eye though.
I swear that it happened. Not that anyone will believe me!

My father has not featured so far because he was in the army.
I think the only funny thing I remember, I’m sure there were others but I can’t remember, was the night before he left to join his unit.
It was a time of a lull in the air raids. I was just going to bed in our flat. My dad told me to sit opposite him. I was expecting him to tell me to be a good lad and look after mum. No!
The whole of the paternal side of my family, men and women were avid Arsenal football club supporters had been since the club arrived in North London, an uncle had actually been a shareholder!
He started: “ You know that Highbury has been bombed and the ‘Gunners’ now have to play all their games at White Hart Lane, (Tottenham Hotspurs ground) now I don’t want you going over to Spurs more than twice a season, home and away, it wouldn’t be right.” He gave me a hug. “ Off you go to bed, you’ll get a good nights sleep to night”. In the morning he was gone

Next memory One has to remember that even in the doodlebug raids very few ever got more than four hours sleep a night, I wonder now how any body kept up, with going to work at 8oc doing eight hours work then starting the whole thing over again and having a good time in between. On the night in question I was down the shelter with my mum and a good mate Ken, he slept in the bunk above me. We had taken to going down the shelter again, it was the start of the flying bombs and it was a bit dangerous up above at night. It didn’t seem to matter so much during the day.
The usual banging could be heard in the shelter but I was tired and went to sleep. A loud bang woke me also Ken. “ That was a close one, lets go and have a look”. It must have been after 3am. “Na I got to be at work early tomorrow, I’ll leave it”. Ken went off to explore. After a couple of minute’s I started to smell moved earth, earth that had not been moved in a long time, even down the shelter you could smell it.
I got up, went out to look for Ken. I went towards Loughbough junction, half way up Loughbough Road I heard singing. It was Ken pulling half a doodlebug out of the fair size hole, it was still warm. “This beats the usual bit of shrapnel” We managed to get it up to Ken’s balcony, outside his flat. When Kens mother came up from the shelter and saw half a flying bomb. She told Ken in no uncertain manner to get ride of it. Which to Kens great regret we did. We put it in Loughbough Road outside the flats where it soon disappeared.

Finally these are quotes from a great Lambeth Walk personality called John Shannon a truly funny man I could go on for an hour with his stories, he has a son also called John Shannon who became a very successful TV actor. I hope the younger John doesn’t mind my telling just two of John senior tales.
On September 3rd 1939 when the first siren of the war sounded at about 11.15. that Sunday morning. John shouted to his wife “The sirens have just sounded, come on”. She shouted back “I cant find me teeth”. To which John shouted back “There going to drop bombs not ham sandwiches”!
After, they ran to Lambeth North tube station for shelter. John told me he had his gas mark on.” I had to take it of Monday after noon”. Foolishly I ask why? John said, “I was hungry”!!!!

===========
My best mate's in my growing up were Ken Power and George Gear. We shared a massive amount of good times, and not many bad ones.
There were four blocks on the Loughbough estate; sixty flats in each block, with an average of two kids a flat! About 500 boys and girls.
I hope I have captured, into the story, the 39-45 feeling, London had at the
time. It was a very special emotion.

There was one instance that may give an insight into ordinary attitudes of the time. This true happening is not meant to show me as an exceptional human being. Any one else would have done the same, which is the point I am trying to make. I was fifteen in 1944. I worked Monday to Friday, 8am to 6 p.m., Saturday's 8am to 12.30 p.m. for which I received 18/6d a week. On Sunday mornings, at 4.am I did what was known as W.H.Smiths Roll-ups, Sunday papers for the famous. I was the Prime Minister's Sunday morning paperboy. The Right Honourable Winston Churchill together with, Anthony Eden,
Lord Beeverbrook, AV Alexander, Lord Halifax and many others. I do not write this to show off...............,well maybe a bit, but to say that I got the unbelievable amount of 25/6 for just the Sunday morning, which was collected before starting our rounds, and the whole round only took one and a half hours.
Bear with me, please.
On Sunday morning the 28th of May 1944, I turned off Whitehall into Downing Street to deliver the last of the papers, to the Foreign Office and Mr. Churchill. In those days there was a sandbagged barricade, manned by the brigade of guards, at the entrance to Downing Street. Whenever I cycled into Downing Street in the dark there was always a cry of 'HALT WHO GOES THERE'. I would slow the bike down and shout back, 'PAPER BOY ' then there was a 'PASS PAPER BOY.' The barrier was lifted and into the street I rode.
On that morning in May, the papers delivered, I started to cycle home. I went to cross Westminster Bridge. It was about 5.30, just beginning to get light. As I passed the wonderful statute of BOADICEA in her chariot, I saw a solider, an American soldier, standing on top of a parapet looking down at the water, his tunic was undone, flapping in the wind, he didn't look much older than me, about nineteen.
I got off my bike to lean it against the bridge.
"What you doing up there?" I asked. The Yank, a sergeant, gave me an obscure, vague look.
"Why don't you f**k off kid, cant you see I'm busy."
"I can see you are going to fall into old father Thames, if you don't watch it. " I replied.
To slice a very extended tale, it turned out he had lost all his money in a crap game, at the time I did wonder what any one would be doing playing with shit for money, any way he was skint, also he was AWOL, absent with out leave, I didn't know what it meant at the time either, but more importantly he was scared, scared about the coming invasion into Europe, which he would be a part of.
He thought he might let his mates down. We had a talk.
He asked me about the blitz and was I in it? Well, after a bit he perked up. He said he would go back ' To his outfit '. I gave him 10/- for the fare to Portsmouth, out of my mornings wages. It never occurred or mattered to either of us how I was to get my 10 bob back. It was like that in the war, you always thought, it could be someone you loved in trouble. My Dad was in the army at the time.
I thought about the American sergeant when I heard of the invasion on the wireless.
I have always hoped that Yank, I didn't even know his name, made it through the war.
The invasion he was worried about took place nine days after our meeting.
I don't know if that story helps to explain the superlative feeling of togetherness we had at the time. I hope so!

I was 10 and a bit on 3rd September 1939, I would be 11 in November,.

I had been evacuated to Hove, near Brighton a few weeks before.

Kevin McCarthy and I were walking along, what we thought was, a disused railway line when the air-raid siren sounded, we knew what it was for they had been practicing that dreadful sound for months in London. An unknown man shouted to us to get off home as WAR had been declared. The woman with him started to scream, loud.” There coming, they’re coming” she went on.
“Shut up you silly cow” The man slapped her face.
“Who’s coming?” I shouted.
“Stop taking the piss and f**k off back home”
“What all the way to Brixton” laughed Kev then added “Bollocks”
The man started to move towards us. We started to run stopping every so often to give him two fingers.
He threw a big stick, which hit Kev on his head. We got off the rail track just in time for a steam train to pass us.
Kevin had blood coming from his head, so I reckon I was present
at the first casualty of the Second World War.

I got back to London just in time for the start of the blitz, Saturday the seventh of September1940, about tea time, been a glorious day.
We really didn’t know what hit us. There were hundreds of planes. The barrage balloons didn’t seem to make any difference. From memory that first raid seemed to go on for about twelve hours. South London wasn’t so bad but East London got it very bad.
I don’t think us kids knew what a great time we were going to have. I know that sounds daft and insensitive to all the families who had love ones killed and injured. But for some kids of my age it was a freedom and ‘not give a shit time’ we never could have imagined, those boring, able to do nothing Sundays, had ended.
It became an every day a new adventure, school became a joke, half a day afternoons one week, mornings the next.
So a few memories, it was a long time ago so dates and times could be a bit out.
One Saturday, early evening I had been to Brixton market with my Mum, shopping, for a reason I cant remember Nora, my Mum, was carrying a neighbour’s small baby, who in latter life became ballet dancer at Covent Garden, I had the shopping. The sirens sounded, funny but that sound could turn my stomach more that the actual bombs.
We heard the sounds of the planes then the ack-ack guns that most have been on the railway line at Loughborough Junction, cause they were loud. We started to run towards our flats and a shelter. We got to the first block and dashed in the nearest porch we came to. Sheltering there was an air-raid warden in his tin hat. By now the noise was immense. It was always a great sock to anyone experiencing the blitz for the first time, the great, great, noise, the never before heard of sounds, the echoes that hurt the chest.
Once in the porch the warden shouted to Nora “Give us the baby I’ll hold it for you, you look all in” And with all that was going on Nora Shouted back “No that’s all right you got glasses on if he wakes up you might frighten him” Only Nora!

The train drew into Hayes station slowly jolted and shuffled to a standstill\ the carriage was so hot that with a feeling of relief I heaved and collected my gear and dumped it on the platform, wondering very much what was coming next. I wished that the little brown eyed man, who was the M.O.T. official, who had met me so efficiently at Waterloo to escort me across the whirl undergrounds; assuring me when the noise was slightly less than usual] that I was' especially lucky to have Miss Gayford as my trainer; was still with me to help me face this marvellous person. A brisk voice behind me asked to carry my kit bag, said its name was Miss Gayford ' Everyone calls me Kit'. That was over. The owner of the voice was slim and extremely vigorous aged about thirty five [this I afterwards found was too generous] black hair, gold earrings, muscular brown arms and legs, which I envied and hoped to emulate as soon as possible, a rosy weather-beaten brown face, long nose and a friendly smile, delightful green eyes. She was dressed in an old red frock with an open neck. We walked across Hayes Bridge to the other side of the ‘Cut’ where the Boats were lying. Oh magic words my inside throbbed violently with excitement and time so to speak stood still. Its a funny thing about Hayes but nearly always I have noticed that the sky seems to be covered with thin white cloud, the sort of cloud that makes a sunny afternoon chilly but still bright and Hayes bridge which is built of white stone, is very wide and seems to pick up the light of the sky and reflect it so that looking westwards it all seems like a river of light, across which if one happens to be there about five in the afternoon, the swarms of cyclists returning home to tea form a dark stream of people flowing against the current of light. Rather like Blake's River of Life. Though perhaps a rather far-fetched comparison.

We dumped my gear on board the motor Battersea and went off to find the food office about ration cards. On the way we met Kay. My first reaction was' My God' and so apparently was hers. Especially as we were to be cabin mates in the motor cabin, by far the smaller of the two cabins. One is apt to wonder what ones mate is going to be like.

Kay was middling height and seemed very blonde - with-a, very brown face, very blue eyes-very wide red mouth - an extremely short cotton print frock and most striking of all exceptionally pure white legs. I couldn’t think how this had happened and remember thinking rather idiotically perhaps she is one of those people that never tan all over. Her voice terrified me, it was sophisticated in the extreme, frightfully efficient and wordy. I sounded completely helpless the moment I opened my mouth and felt it. However when we got back, worse followed Miranda appeared from the butty cabin to put a pie the star in cupboard. She too was fair but not so fair, had long aristocratic features, ice blue eyes that gazed at me with no expression at all. At Kit’s introduction ' ah yes Hallo' and disappeared. Not encouraging. But very much, I thought, what I had expected and remembered Baker's remarks about tough women. Frightfully, frightfully you know with unexpected warmth.

Miranda was left on the butty, Kay was taken by Kit on the motor. I was given a piece of' Boater's Pie' to fill the increasing gap in my middle. It's very good 'Boater's Pie' either hot or cold and is much like Cornish Pasty made of mince and cold potato. I ate and listened to -them start the engine. Kit's engine was a dream to start, rarely needing more than a couple of turns with the crank before she would slip into gear and burst into a rhythmic powerful throb; it would vibrate through our little cabin, separated from the engineer room by only a thin partition, in a very definite way. Sometimes when we were tired and trying to get a rest at the end of a long day - it could be just hell. But then it was just exciting.

I got my things unpacked into the drawer and top cupboard which were mine, Then had a mighty struggle with my mattress getting it stowed away into the bed locker where Kay already had hers stowed. Hers however was small and blue and mine a mighty stripped thing that fought against imprisonment like a wild thing. I wondered if this had to be done everyday as I supposed it had, just how we were going to cope. I still wonder. The cabins of canal boats are, I think, feats of carpenters’ skill. There is everything one needs for a completely well supplied, if not comfortable existence in a space 'of 8ft by 6ft. The motor cabin is smaller than this, having the extra room taken up by the engine room. The final effect is that from the outside the butty appears to have less space than the motor. You descend from the false step, false because it is taken out to be scrubbed regularly and dried to pure whiteness on the cabin top on to the coal box. A triangular affair which fits under the step, its lid must always be spotless. On ones left is the stove slightly at an angle to give as much space as possible, it has an oven rarely used as such, usually for drying wood There is an open grate on which a lot of cooking is done in winter .It is customary to keep one's primus or oil stove on the left hand corner of the fire for extra cooking. The background to this corner is painted sax blue. The stove should be brilliantly polished. Then come the cupboards. The food cupboard with its arch shaped table forming its door and held at the top so that one lets it down for meals. Below this is a small cupboard in which saucepans may be kept. Adjacent to this one of the large drawers for clothes. Above this the locker for bedding, quite a deep affair, the front of which is at night' let down across the centre space of the cabin supported by the bench on the other side. Forming one of two beds and can if need be be used as a double one. Above the bed are two small lockers for small private possessions and toilet items. At the end of the butty cabin is a door leading into the annexe. A neat little stall place divided from the actual hold by a board partition and tarpaulin sheets. One keeps vegetables/brooms/oilskins in here. It's inclined to be troublesome, if the rain doesn’t get in the coal does and when they both get in together as not infrequently happens one is in for a hell of an afternoon spring-cleaning. '

Emerging once more from the annexe, observe our neat bookshelves and a hook for coats. The side-bed bench is about one and a half feet wide and runs completely down one side of the cabin. The drawer takes up the first half of it. Then comes what is commonly referred to as under the side bed. A large hollow space which one reaches through the top. The kindly carpenters having left several of the planks loose therein are kept shoes and other glory hole items. The far end of this space is partitioned off for the battery. These batteries last about a week giving a very good light. They are charged off the motor so one the advantages of motor cabin life is constant good light. Cups and jugs hang neatly on hooks along the cabin wall also hurricane lamps if one has them. It doesn’t seem to me that the space could be more neatly used. There are in addition a flap for the side bed which is raised at night and rested on the coal box and a wooden plank which goes across the bed space for a small extra seat. Beneath this if one is lucky one has a painted bread tin and somewhere hanging on a hook, its allotted space to cover two small ledges for pan and floor cleaning materials at the door end of the cabin and over the stove a lovely rose covered 'Arnbowl' or hand bowl in which all ones washing is done. The regulation issue for the G.V.C.C. are scarlet, lovely they look when new. But they can never compare in gaiety with the riot of flowers that cover the dark green surface of the hand painted ‘Arnbowl’ with their spotless white interior and the dainty castles painted on their bottoms for display when they are hung up. But this did not occur to me then. The cabins of the training boats were dingy and dark and very well worn. Nothing was very well polished - not that there was much to polish- it was hot and stuffy. So as soon as I could I changed my smart clothes and put on an ancient summer dress that had seen its best days harvesting and emerged on deck. To emerge from a cabin is the only way to describe it, the entrance is steep and narrow and awkward, especially on the motor where one has to avoid the gear handle and the steerer, who wants one out of the way as quickly as possible. The result is a series of bruises about ones shoulders for the first week; after which one becomes agile from necessity. We were on that occasion all set, that is we had our loading orders for London Docks and nothing to collect from the Depot. So in grand we sailed past the Depot, I can't remember anything about Hayes Corner ‘A famous and fateful spot’ then and on for the top of the locks where we were to tie for the night.
The run down to the docks was peaceful as there is no traffic on a Sunday evening. The water is good, one only has to slow down to pass lines of little bobbing pleasure boats that have been bedded down en route or long swaying herds of barges creaking and slamming each other in an elephantine manner; sometimes if badly tied swinging savagely out and snapping at ones heels. A snap from a twenty tonner is no joke. You creep past with a weather eye and scarce a ripple from your bows. "Little Rosie, Gert Winnie or Golden Girl gives a wild lurch, a groan and sinks back to eye you morosely and vengefully.

The evening was warm and lovely, the sunlight golden making kind the endless rows of little suburban houses and tiny gardens. The sweep of the golf links green and rich dotted with sheep and small figures moving slowly across the artificial hillocks in search of pleasure. I looked and looked and breathed the sunlight, felt my hair lift in the breeze and felt utterly indescribably alive, happy and free. The beat of the engine gets into ones blood and makes it race and we were moving too. Kit explained that the butty was short strapped on cross straps for travelling light and that my job was to stand at the long wooden tiller of the butty and if her stern got too near the bank I was to put the tiller in the direction I wanted her to go and swing her away. Easier done than said, thought .I and found out otherwise. Through some of the more gingery and difficult bridges she showed a surprising and alarming tendency to swing in from the motor right in under the curve of the bridge to the danger of life and limb not to mention the chimney and the water can. Both these articles are detachable in times of crisis, frequent in ones early days. One has to do a lot of chimney removing. We chugged steadily rhythmically and easily onward. After a while Kit sent Kay onto the butty and took me along the catwalk of planks laid along the cross beams of the boat which are level-*with the gun whale and therefore suspended about 4ft 9 ins above the bottom of the hold, to the fore end of the butty. The motor slowed down the butty bows slid forward level with her stern counter Kit jumped lightly down followed not so lightly by me.

The stern of the motor - sits down in the water when one is travelling light and her bows rise in comparison. Both boats have a draught of about four foot, nine inches when empty, no draught at all to speak of, so that the difference between loaded and empty boats is incredible. Especially to the steerer who has to see round her cratch when empty. The cratch is the wooden triangle at the bows which is the fore point of the sheeting up framework. Now, I began to wonder about my relationship with boats. Kit told me to sit on the cabin roof and I was terrified to realise that I had to walk round the gun whale which appeared to be about six inches wide and jump onto the cabin roof which has a depth of about three foot from the gun whale. God! I did it in a terrified way and thought eyeing the dark green swirling water slipping between my feet, what is going to happen if I miss it when I jump off. However that could wait, the view became suddenly breathtaking, we had left Suburbia behind and after miles of factories, warehouses and barges, suddenly rounded a long bend, there before us lay two huge gasometers, one camouflaged, one white and dazzling, a long curving white concrete edge of canal before we reached them/beyond which lay London at our feet. All the spires drifting smoke and the immensity of it. In the immediate foreground lay Paddington shunting yards. Someone murmured something about bombs and we looked at those snaking masses of rail, thinking how easily one well placed bomb could have finished them off or heavily disorganised them. Italian prisoners, the first I had seen, waved at us cheerily looking good in the dark green battledress they wear, some more dashing with red tam-o-shanters.

On we went, the warm summer breeze whipping the water into a semblance of those little grey green waves in Botticellis Venus. The clouds golden and warm above the golden haze of the distance it was all an Italian painting, gasometers included. We beat into their shadow and our world went dark-- on a little further, bridges and railways everywhere. Kit said we would soon be in the slum area. Tall buildings blank walls rose on either side of us, cans bobbed in the water and the grass on the banks went dead. The towpath had an evil look about it and the walls turned into houses with blind eyes and balconies that over hung the Cut. The dirt was incredible filthy curtains, filthy windows, carpets hanging over balconies and only odd scrawny scarlet geranium here and there to cheer things up. One old bald headed man with a shiny ruby red face and an incredibly fat belly, attired in his shirtsleeves and very unshaved, gave us a toothy grin. A sudden babble of yells rose from the other side of the Cut where bathing naked in the canal were a large crowd of youths, some swimming vigorously towards us others drying themselves round a large camp fire. I watched them curiously, the ones in the water looking exactly like seals their hair streaming over their faces. Their horse cries making little sense above the noise of the engine. They yelled and whistled until we disappeared, one or two others watched us pass or dived hurriedly into the water.

The canal widened and after a series of wide sprung bridges and a reach of canal far statelier in width than it's surroundings warranted and a particularly filthy stretch of flats known as 'Valentine's Row', we reached Paddington stop. Here, when loaded boats are gauged or tested to find out if their draught is the same as it was when the boats left the docks. When travelling empty you can if you wish collect water, but you have no luck with the office. It's a narrow place through which boats can go breasted up - but in any case one has to creep, as otherwise a tidal wave would submerge the company offices, a nasty jar for them! Just beyond the stop is a wide turn - you creep from under the bridge, swing widely through another narrow bridge and into the tunnel. As it was Sunday there's no need to enquire the 'Tug was coming through'.

On weekdays this is a ritual because every half hour or so a busy little tug collects the light barges going down and takes them through to the top of the locks and brings the loaded ones back up. We whistled through the engines suddenly alarmingly loud and hollow - the air, cold and clammy and the water ink like and slapping violently at the sides. We were out in a few moments - two more bends between towering warehouses; suddenly we were there 'The top of the locks' Camden Lock! We slowed down, Kit released the butty from its shorts straps — handed Miranda the cotton line with which she walked up to the bows climbed round the cratch slipped the noose and was ready to step calmly onto the butty bows as they slid past, do the same to her, the two boats swung together gently.

We crawled slowly in 8; the dock lay quiet before us, the great piles of aluminium silver against the dark steel - the cranes still for once and at their foot, rows of boats,- silent and still, there must have been fourteen or fifteen pairs black and silver and very lovely. It was really ecstatically beautiful. We tied up and hushed our engine. Miranda and I suddenly were bitten with a wave of excitement and in our filthiest clothes even. Without washing, went out to buy fish and chips. We walked, eating hungrily and so tired we were part sleep walking up to the town. Past a tall cinema "shall we?" "Lets go in the eight pennies" and in we went to sit in rich red plush seats and in a hot stifling atmosphere, Bing Crosby in "Going my Way". We weren't unloaded until late next day and washed religiously all day. Kay was showing signs of illness and had a lay in: Miranda and I took the boats down to Camp Hill. Them she and Miranda had a difference of opinion on what was the best course for invalids. Kay maintaining that she could cope with the butty without brainwork. And Miranda, that a gentle life on the motor was the thing; Kay wept bitterly and weakly and we all decided it was flu: so I went off on the motor doing my own lock wheeling - leaving Kay and Miranda with the butty. Kay stayed in bed in the afternoon; and we had the hell of a wind blowing and a battle at one of the locks with a family who nipped in and grabbed a lock under our noses, putting us on the mud. I've forgotten a slab of this trip. When I arrived back on the boats I found that Kay had made; friends with an exceptionally dirty family of renowned thieves known as the Coxes. For some time she had been' contemplating the purchase of another dog. They had a large liver and white foxhound which took her eye on our first trip. Over a beer at the "Prospect of Whitby" a well-known dock pub celebrated in one of Miss Dorothy Sayers novels; she and Harry Cox made friends and discussed the matter. Harry was tall, lean and incredibly dirty. He wore dark clothes and a dark cloth cap well pulled down over ~is eyes - a fringe of yellow hair stuck out around the back; he had long dirty neck with a prominent Adam's apple and green eyes which were startling in their surroundings. He talked in jerks and told incredible tales - all lies but which I think he rather believed himself; providing no one contradicted him too often! His father had something the matter with his head and went off his nut occasionally but this was more a matter of hearsay than anything. He too was dark an over - but had remarkable light blue eyes. I only once saw him with his face washed when it was such a shock - that I simply didn't recognise him - and only when their butty swung gaily past ours, a whole bevy of Coxes waving did I realise who they were. Mama was the brains of the family. Harry was sixteen and there was a large and indiscriminate collection of boys of small sizes as well: all dirty, skinny, fair haired and green eyed. But she was gay and slim and very attractive; with a very brown face and brown hair drawn tightly back into a bun. Gold earrings and flashing green eyes, very neat features. A long brown frock which nearly reached her ankles. Kay and Harry became great friends. Harry came over on the Sunday in the docks to see Kay and eventually, having talked most of the day said "you like tea?". Kay smiled charmingly. Thinking an extra packet wouldn't be amiss; Harry with mysterious signs disappeared. Not long after an enormous lighter bumped past. Harry leapt on board "'ere give me that biscuit tin" disappeared and reappeared with it full. Kay thoughtfully applied a lid. Thanked Harry earnestly and feeling that this tea getting was on rather a large scale. Bid him farewell. Harry promised determinedly to take her out for a beer at six. At quarter to a large policeman also a friend of Kay's arrived in the course of his rounds to cheer her solitary vigil; he sat down firmly practically on top of the tea chest and partook of a cup of that beverage. ... Harry appeared and bounced in before he saw the guest and seeing him withdrew in one movement "just a friend" said Kay "dropped in unexpectedly" (feeling the delicacy of the situation) "He's going to take me on his rounds", Harry gulped into his tea cup and drank hurriedly, vanishing with hardly another word. "Some of these boaters are queer blokes" said the arm of the law and proceeded to escort a relieved Kay around the docks pointing out the many places where suicide and attempts there of had been fished out! But to return to the dog; Harry having been reassured about the Policeman handed over the dog - and offered with warmth to "butty" us to Birmingham just to keep an eye on the dog for us. "Buttying" someone means that you travel together and you tie up at the same places. Towards Christmas family and friends butty each other to get together for the season holiday and one passes families - four boats strung together whistling merrily along with everyone in the best of spirits and the families all muddled up. It's a great time for courtship this; as it is one of the few times of year when people get together for more than a night or two. Miranda, however, viewed the idea of "buttying" this celebrated family with not unjustifiable coldness. It was scarcely, perhaps, the best introduction we could have to boaters society! But anyway by now/christened "Kelly" was a member of our family. He was large and inclined to be impetuous. In a minute cabin his swinging tail and eager mouth upset or devoured a surprising amount and both Miranda and I felt glad that he lived with Kay. By the time we reached the Bottom Road we had come to except him; his friendly visits while we cooked our supper, sitting firmly on our step; one melting eye fixed on our supper and one on us - just in case we relaxed and looked the other way for a moment! His pathetic whimpers when we didn't were all part of the days work. But with Kay now ill: he became a devastating problem - he refused flatly to stay in the cabin when there was trouble and leapt blithely and with much tail wagging onto the shore the moment we stuck. Left on shore he howled bitterly and instead of running, on the towpath after the boats. Leapt into the water and struck out after us. A not too excellent idea considering the blades etc. The wind rose and blew with icy persistence: .the engine developed its usual habit of giving out as soon as we were empty - the boats swung time and time again onto the mud. Muddying is comparatively logical with three. One goes up to the bows and shafts them over to midstream. The second throws all her weight onto the tiller to swing .the stern out, the third alternately helps this operation by shafting from the 'stern'; or else trots along to the butty stern and shafts that off, so that no part of the boat drags on the bank and there is some hope of getting up enough speed to prevent one slipping up. With two, the thing is crazy. One can achieve the motor bows off the bank and the stern, but the butty acts as a drag and before you've moved four yards the wind puts you back where you were before. Miranda and I slogged into the growing dark with bitter feelings; we reached the bottom of Minneworth and under a steel blue sky of whipping clouds in the dark shelter of tall trees tied up. As soon as we were tethered a pair of empties came cheerfully past swinging down the middle of the stream as though mud and wind simply didn't exist. We looked after them wondering just what was wrong with us and went to dig out coal for Kay and ourselves from the back end. Next morning. After a night in which the boats slapped each other and the water gurgled between them and the bank unceasingly. We woke up, or we became unwillingly conscious. Breakfast was a silent meal. Kay was worse and showed every signs of flu. She scrambled round and made her own tea in an uncomfortable fashion, whilst Kelly licked her and the food in cheerful abandon. We struggled with the engine, after ten minute’s or so it burst into life and the boat throbbed: a horse boat passed us with shouted imprecations about our tie. We set off. Curditch is a set of locks widely spaced. But single and bow-hauling the butty was a necessity. The wind was if anything wilder, and the engine worse. That day was an unbelievable nightmare. We did not eat- we hardly spoke- we shafted until our hands were raw and our backs were unbearable. The butty became unwieldy, innumerable horse boats passed us and complicated things. The unending beat of the motor nearly drove Kay. Fighting the flapping doors, the dog and her utter misery, mad. We "were unable even to find time to see her - we worked in a blind aching misery - it grew dark and we found we had taken 12 hours to cover six miles and we still had 'lit finished the locks - so suddenly we gave in and went to eat tea leaving the engine running, knowing we were fat to tired to start it again if it stopped. The beat suddenly changed and raced, Miranda struggled off into the dark to find out what had happened. Kay almost tearful said she couldn't bear the beat any longer and had to change the rhythm somehow! That was enough "let's tie up" said Miranda. We all thought it an excellent idea but where? We were on a mud bank on the wrong side of the Cut and in imminent danger of being hit by a horse boat if we drifted so we shafted ourselves across the Cut once more and after about half an hour we made the opposite bank. I turned round to Miranda to yell from the bows that I thought I could jump on shore with a rope when the clip clop of horses’ hooves sounded in the darkness and the swift swish of a boat. Before I could speak I was pinned to the Cratch with a rope and the boat coming rapidly up behind and the rope sliding round our Cratch after the horse. I gave a scream and fought madly, visions of being neatly sliced in half very vivid for a moment. Somehow I slid sideways and was thrown between the cratches of the two boats. The rope pinged across the top and was gone; - what happened at the other end I was too busy getting myself disentangled from a slippery position of safety on the side of the cratch to bother about. The next day was better but we decided to wait for the fitters: our engine was really too much. We then sallied forth the following afternoon, set off by fitters and all, in a mighty struggle with shafts. They waved goodbye to our sidling dubiously, evidently expecting us to come to grief at any moment. But somehow we didn't. Beyond a certain old town by the Cut, between Coventry and Brum is a very low blue brick bridge. It's so low that it's necessary to take down one's motor Cratch in order to creep through. Some blarney idiot told us that our cratches on our new boats were low enough to get through; they weren't and the motor having gone just too far and got jammed beneath; and had to be towed out backwards by a horse boat. We gazed with horror but found the cratch was merely a cleverly put together framework; it had merely collapsed and was still intact. The lamp had gone though, which meant we had no lights on our bully or our motor. We crept up Atherstone, and realised sadly that the following day was Sunday. We tied up in the mouth of the lock and were up well before six next morning. The pair behind us were furious at our good position and tried to make us get out. They started their engines well before the lock was open and were ready to jostle us at the slightest opportunity. However we were beginning to get tough and had our engines going long before the lock was open. Suddenly the gates swung open and we nosed 9ur way in. Then began a mighty race. There were boats coming down and we had the locks with us. So no lock wheeling, we went up easily and shook off the pair behind. Next we swept over the Summit going slowly because of the mud. Our rivals were visible on the long straight stretches but showed no signs of catching up.

Down Dodswell and Northchurch tl1e dark dawn &'1d red sky that had dimly lit us up Mathas, lightened and rain began to fall heavily - we got drenched. The towrope made our cabin a large pool. We were so wet, it simply wasn’t any good bothering. Presently 'their lock wheeler began to appear before we were out of the lock and to watch us, a surly girl who refused to help. We daren’t stop or else we should have had to wait all day while the string of boats behind us passed. Our unloading place would have gone. So on we went. Next an old white-haired woman in long black skirts and with a three cornered headscarf appeared in place of her daughter. \\That she didn’t say about 'Girls cluttering up the Cut and stopping honest folks getting' on with their job and earning' a living', wasn't worth saying-but Miranda turned a blind eye and a deaf ear.

The Ovaltine boats arriving slap at thy top gates as we swept out of the bottom. There was no time to eat and less to think. We were lock wheeling again now-- sloshing through puddles, dodging the soaking hedges on and on. If anything went wrong we were done but by some miracle it didn't-- we sailed into Apsley and tied up still head of the team, and as proud as punch.

The rain stopped, it was my turn to go home for a few days while the boats were unloaded and then went down to the docks. I crawled home dry but nearer dead than alive. \When I got to Waterloo I found I had missed the 7.30 and ended up on the 11.30 p.m, At Christchurch it was a glorious moonlight night and I trailed home feeling so unreal. The soft warm sweet smelling southern air after everything was so peaceful. It was so lovely to be in the same town as B he might not love or even like me any more, but he wasn't far away and that was all I asked. He and I under the same stars for once. I fell into bed when I got home and next morning as I lay dreamily~ amongst a pile of letters on my breakfast tray w~. One marked Private and in a strange hand. I suddenly knew and was so weak I could scarcely open it. I looked at the signature and cried from sheer joy and relief. . It took a lot of reading and I was so deliriously goldenly happy that I couldn’t think of anything all day. There wasn’t much to say about that leave except that when you are in love with someone, one expects them to know what you are thinking; a foolish delusion which one would not have under normal circumstances. We met once for about five minutes. A tall dark creature who swept the floor in a cavalier bow when we met. I had a wild desire to run after him when he went, feeling I might never see him again; but I didn’t and he went. I went back to the boats, warm and happy inside but still very tired.