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Rockets, Doodlebugs and Loose Teeth — Mitcham 1944

We were used to the sound of heavy aircraft coming over to bomb London. We were so tired, that it had become the normal way to live. We also remember our heavy bombers going out in wave after wave, night after night to bomb Germany and in the early hours of the morning hearing them come back, sometimes in groups and stragglers limping home, one or two at a time sometimes on one engine. Nothing prepared us for Hitler’s next trick.

One night the siren had gone, we were in the shelter, when we heard the odd throbbing and threatening sound of the Doodlebug. The V1 had arrived. It seemed to creep across the sky menacingly. It wasn’t just us shaking; the whole shelter was vibrating. Then the engine cut out, everyone held their breath, then there was an enormous crash somewhere not far away. We did not know there would be thousands of these unmanned aircraft spreading out all across England, at least you heard them coming and could throw your self down on the ground. Just when we thought it could not get worse; it did.

The V2 just arrived with a devastating crash and a lot of confusion. Where had it landed? Had the sirens gone?
I can’t remember how many times I cracked my head on the dining room table trying to get cover. Sometimes I lost a tooth and couldn’t find it. I must have swallowed it. I have always had a nervous disposition, but writing this explains a lot.

We didn’t make any plans for the future, we lived from day to day, school, home, shelter all priorities. Breakfast porridge or dripping toast. Lunch endless stews rabbit or neck of lamb. Tea egg and chips or jam sandwiches. Everyone grew vegetables and kept rabbits and chickens.

I’ve got a picture of my mother in my head standing at the gas stove in her turban and the then approved of slacks, poking something around in a big saucepan. I was hoping it wasn’t our lunch as the smell was awful. Evidently it was for the chickens. I was relieved.

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