大象传媒

As a young lad during the last war, I feel that my own personal experience may be of interest.

I was 9 years of age when the war started, and everyone had Anderson shelters put into their back gardens, which unfortunately flooded from time to time, however, my mother and Mrs. Simmonds, the lady who lived next door and myself spent every night in the shelter until the all clear sounded early in the morning.

I remember one day there were lots of planes flying above us in perfect formation; every one looked up in awe until someone shouted "they are bloody Germans" and all rushed to the shelters. A bomb exploded in the next turning to us, roughly 200 yards away which demolished a row of houses there were no injuries. Incidentally as we lived on the border of Bromley and quite high up on the hill, we witnessed a few dog fights which took place at Biggin Hill.

My mother decided that I should be evacuated, and with my little suit case and gas mask was promptly dispatched to Banstead in Surrey. Within 3 weeks we were sent by coach to Broadreeds holiday camp at Selsey Bill which is on the south coast. All the children were put into separate parties and as I wore leg irons below the knee caps, was placed into the physical handicraft group.
I had the last bedroom on my own at the end of the chalet which I loved, for I could watch the search light being used together with a field gun. The searchlight and the small anti aircraft gun was about 100 yards from my chalet window. One day I heard planes firing at each other but did not actually see them.

On the 20th July 1941 at 11.30 pm there was a terrific explosion, my door to the chalet was blown open and my bed covered in glass鈥� it would appear that the chalet next to mine on my right, had a direct hit and kids were killed. Another few yards and it could have been my chalet. The teachers from our group got all the kids together, told to look left and were ushered into a brick shelter.
Next day we were all sent to a castle in north Wales, (where it was I never found out). But what an experience, for we could look through the slits in the walls and see the country side with dark mountains in the back ground. My mother having read the daily mirror 21 1941 ' bombs on cripples ' immediately asked for my return and collected me.

My father who was in the forces decided to visit his mother in Liverpool, so my mother, sister, dad and I traveled up by steam train. After a while the guard came into our compartment and said that all blinds must be pulled down as there was an air raid, bored stiff I began to peep through the blinds and saw this German airplane just to the right of the train at the same time I saw an object falling from the plane. I told my father about the plane but he did not believe me at first, but when he saw the plane he made us all get under the seats. The German plane then machine- gunned the train three times but we heard on the wireless when we reached Liverpool that there were no casualties. My sister remained in Liverpool, so mum, dad, and I returned home.

One Monday about 1 pm, the sirens sounded but as there were no signs of any air-raid, the three of us sat down to dinner. All of a sudden we heard this bomb falling and rushed out to the shelter, but before we could get into the shelter the bomb had fallen and a large piece of earth just missed my leg and stuck to the side of the Anderson Shelter. We did not know that mother had wasted a few seconds by grabbing her hand bag, and ran under the cycle shed that had been built with 3 inch wood. But unfortunately, the weight of the roof and debris split the wood which penetrated into her head causing great loss of blood and had to spend some time in hospital. The kind neighbour next door became another mum to me. The bomb had fallen in the gateway of the house opposite, resulting in having our street door propelled down the corridor and ending in the toilet, with intensive damage to our roof, a piece of glass still remains in the brick work.
One night whilst in the shelter, we heard this whistling bomb coming down and when it exploded the Anderson Shelter rocked and we heard falling debris and glass falling down and someone said 鈥渢hat's the house gone鈥�.
We blew the candles out and looked out but we saw no sign of any damage. The house was still standing, so we went inside and were surprised to see still no sign of damage that was until we opened the street door. The bomb had actually fallen to the left of our house about 30 yards away on the corner of the street, about 18 yards from the first bomb. Again houses were demolished, which meant the whole corner was now down. The blast did not come our way at all for we only suffered one cracked window.

Mother said enough is enough and said we are getting out of London, eventually we were evacuated Leicester. The local authorities insisted on arrival that every one should have a bath before being placed into peoples homes... Mother was upset about this but she had to do what she was told even though she felt insulted. We were at Leicester just over a week when the Germans decided to bomb Coventry and Leicester.
I will always remember that night for the sky was red due to all the fires. Mother said that鈥檚 it, were are going home, if we are going to be bombed it might as well be at home, so once again we were back in London.

Coming home for dinner one day, a German airplane flew very low just above us, we ran into a house and asked to go into their shelter but was told to stand under the stairs, within a few minutes we heard a bomb explode, but didn鈥檛 know where it had dropped until we returned to school in the afternoon that the school further down the road (Sangley road) had received a direct hit with over 25 to 30 children killed whilst sitting down to dinner. There was a mass burial in Hithergreen cemetery.

With the war continuing in fits and starts, the doodle bugs started to appear. By this time I had reached the magical age of 14, and started my employment in the office of a wood yard (not many jobs about then for 14 year olds). One of my duties was to ensure that the mill workers were made aware of the doodle bug position. When 25 miles away there was a special signal, when 5 miles away they had to leave their machines and make their way to the shelters. I did not enjoy working in the office and asked that I may join my friends in the mill. On hind sight, I wished that I had remained in the office for within 4 weeks I had an accident and lost my left arm below the elbow.

One day which stands out for me, was when a doodle bug was seen to be spinning its way down to our row of houses, the motor had already stopped, but something happened for it veered left and crashed two streets away, roughly about 250 yards away.

One night I remember coming out of the pictures with an air raid going on, my friend and I waited for a bus home, and then we saw someone coming down on a parachute to a field just alongside Catford bridge station. We ran into the pub and every one rushed out but by this time a tram had pulled up and blocked our view. They didn't believe us but I have often wondered who it was and if they did catch him.

Due to my unfortunate accident, I had no other choice but to go into clerical work, so each morning I caught the 8.35 am bus to the Grove Park Railway Station. After 3 stops there was an almighty explosion, and I can still hear that bus conductor saying "blimey some ones copped that lot". It was not until I got home from work that I found out my lucky escape. A v2 rocket had dropped only 2 to 3 minutes after the bus had passed the spot where it fell on the edge of the cemetery. My house had every window broken with glass all over the place.
In addition to this the council had to lime all the back gardens due to the serious problem of disturbing graves. It looked like Christmas.

A landmine dropped nr grove park station which caused rows of houses to be demolished. Another time a VL dropped again near the station, and as we started to walk home we passed the bombed house a distressed lady standing by the street gate, eventually became our next door neighbour.

Although many bombs were being dropped (we had at least 5 of them plus the VL and V2 within 200 -250 yards) also not forgetting the dozens of incendiary bombs. Seeing the shells exploding in the air with the search lights, made each night look like November 5th teamed with the the sight of seeing the morning red sky reflecting on the dozens of barrage balloons. It makes you wonder if all this really happened, but thank God someone was looking after me鈥�

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