´óÏó´«Ã½

So Many Memories

1943 was an interim period between the blitz of 1940/41 and the commencement of the v-weapons missile attacks of 1944/45. We were still experiencing sporadic air raids, but we were now sleeping indoors albeit with an ear cocked for the sound of the siren.

Just, when after a few quiet nights, we thought maybe things were dying down, the attacks would return with a vengeance. This was particularly evident if the R.A.F had carried out a heavy bombing raid the previous night on Germany and especially if the raid had been on Berlin. A reprisal could virtually be guaranteed.

It was about this time that an incident occurred which has been etched on my memory. Although it was just one of many I have personal experience of, this one for me was more poignant because it involved two people of whom I was very fond.

In the absence of photographs, I have to rely on my descriptive ability to impart the scene to you, but it is a human story and a moving one, which I feel is worthwhile to relate.

Visualise if you can, a single storey building standing alone in a street that has become a large bombed site. I.e. All adjacent shops and houses have been obliterated and their debris cleared away. The building is a shop and the former living accommodation on the upper floor having been severely damaged has been demolished. The premises are now capped by a plywood roof covered by felt. Outwardly the building appears derelict. It is windowless, the shop front is boarded up and the once glass-panelled entrance door has been clad with a grey painted sheet of steel. Only the name above the door gives any indication that it is a functioning business: ‘Albert Alfred Hammersley, Licensed to Sell Beers to be Consumed Off The Premises Only, and Tobacco'. Inside will be the proprietor a thin round shouldered man approaching 60, dressed as always in a brown suit, frayed at the cuffs, a flat cap and, without exception, a starched collar and bow tie. Assisting him a tall skinny youth, a few months out of school (me). The accommodation comprised of a shop with six hand pumps mounted on the counter for dispensing draught beers, a stock room, a staircase now redundant which once led to the upper floor, and a cellar. This was my first place of work. Mr Hammersley (the Guv’nor) was a really nice man and we were a good team. He had lost his eldest son John, an A.F.S.fireman, in December 1940 when he was killed along with 9 of his colleagues when his station at Gainsborough Road School received a direct hit. I liked to think that my presence did much to keep him cheerful. We were open in the evening until 10pm, but if an alert sounded we would close earlier. On these occasions we would quickly remove all the bottles from the shelves to the floor, take out the money from the till, put out the lights and lock up. We would accomplish this exercise in about 3 minutes, having previously cleared the shop of customers. Sometimes we wouldn’t make it before the raiders were overhead. In these instances we would make a hasty retreat to the cellar and stand against the wall as the fragile roof of the building afforded no protection at all. We would remain there until there was a lull, and then make a dash for home.

On one occasion when things were becoming rather scary the Guv’nor turned to me and said ‘Len if anything happens to me, the money is over there behind those barrels’. It did wonders for my morale!.

In spite of the primitive conditions, it was a happy place to work in. Our customers were our friends and we knew most of them by name. there were some colourful characters among them, and we had our own nicknames for some of them. There was ‘the Old Toff’ an elderly white haired gentleman so called because of his distinguished appearance always dressed in bowler hat, black jacket, bow tie and striped trousers. Then there were ‘Cap ‘n Fag’ and Mrs Cider, the latter two needing no explanation. My favourites were a Mr and Mrs Romer (real name) or John and Dinah as they preferred to be called. They were a really lovely couple, around 60 years of age and totally devoted to one another. They had been bombed out of their previous home and were now re-housed in Tennyson Road where I lived myself, I can picture them now, John short and stocky always wore a flat cap and steel rimmed glasses and Dinah a tiny dark haired lady with a lovely personality. A typical grandma and grandpa. They were always cheerful, a pair of cockney diamonds. They had a weekly order of 6 bottles of Watney’s Extra Stout which I used to deliver for them on a Saturday evening. They lived at No.165 almost the last remaining house in the road. Beyond was a vast expanse of open ground where the remaining houses in Tennyson Road and the adjacent b
Bath Road had once stood before their destruction by a parachute mine in April 1941 and where grass and shrubs were now growing amid a desert of broken bricks and buckled and disused Anderson shelters.

It was the week-end of the 15th and 16th of May, 1943 and it was to prove to be a memorable date for all the wrong reasons. For the most part it was just an ordinary week-end. Saturday was busy as usual. Wartime restrictions meant that popular beers such as Guinness, Bass and Barley Wine were in short supply and had to be allocated fairly. Many of our customers liked draught beers which we would serve by measure from the hand pumps into their jugs and bottles. Late in the day I went out on the trade bike to do my deliveries. My last call of the day was at the home of Mr & Mrs Romer (John and Dinah). I arrived at their little house about 8pm. They often invited me into their home and this occasion was no exception. They had just made a pot of tea and they offered me a cup and a slice of home made cake. They showed me pictures of their grown up family and their grandchildren, the latter were evacuated somewhere in the country. In common with most houses in our road hardly a single pane of glass remained in any of their windows but they had the wired cellophane panels the same as those in our own house, to let in a little daylight. I can still picture their living room. In a cage was a talking budgerigar called Mac. A large calendar with a picture of Winston Churchill hung on the wall. The room was sparsely furnished as they had lost much of their furniture when their previous home was destroyed. I stayed chatting with them for about 15 minutes then said goodnight and returned to the shop to finish my work.

There had been no air raids of any significance for more than a week and we were beginning to get complacent. Again it was a quiet night. Sunday morning I went to work as usual; my working hours left little time for social life, but on Sunday I was free from 2.30pm until7pm. On this occasion it was fine sunny day and I decided to go for a bus ride.

The restricted coastal zone had been reduced from 25 miles inland to just 10 miles, thus opening up places like Upminster which I could reach for a return fare of 1/-2d (6p). I really felt the need to escape from the dusty war torn environment of the East End into the pure fresh air of the countryside, albeit for just a couple of hours. There was sufficient time to allow me to do this, get home and have some tea and arrive at the shop by 7pm. I completed my evening shift and arrived home at about 10.30pm and went to bed around 11.15pm. At 11.45pm I was awakened by the distant rumble of anti aircraft gunfire. There had been no alert, but I had enough experience to know it wasn’t target practise. I woke my mother and sister Doris and we hurriedly put coats on over our night clothes and went downstairs. We reached the Anderson shelter in the back garden just as a belated siren was being sounded. The gunfire was becoming closer now, and the sky was criss-crossed with searchlight beams. I was standing by the sand-bagged entrance to the shelter and my mother was anxiously calling me to come inside. I could hear the sound of an approaching aircraft and it seemed to be flying exceptionally low as if it were in a crash dive. As I quickly scrambled inside the shelter, the noise from the engine was deafening and it seemed to be coming right down on top of us. There was a tremendous explosion which shook the ground as it had apparently crashed. When the dust had settled we climbed out of the shelter and looked around. A huge pall of black smoke was rising from the bottom of the road interspersed with sparks. There was also a glow like a small fire. We went out into the street a lot of people were there. Then we saw fire engines rescue tenders and ambulances go by, their bells frantically ringing. We asked our A.R.P. warden what had happened. "It’s come down at the end of the road", we were told. Our own house had suffered only minor damage to the front door. When daylight came I walked to the end of the road to see what had happened. As I got progressively nearer the scene, I passed badly damaged houses. Broken glass and roofing slates littered the pavement and road. A chimney pot stood at a dangerous angle on the roof of the corner shop. I reached the scene and was stunned by the sight that greeted me. It was shocking even to my experienced eyes. A rope barrier was strung across the road. All houses on one side of the road from No. 145 onward had been obliterated and on the opposite side from No. 118 had also been reduced to a huge heap of rubble, into which white helmeted rescue teams were toiling. By some strange phenomenon the party walls between some of the houses remained standing like giant tombstones towering above their flattened interiors. The dust and the smell of debris hung in the air. I saw Jimmy Wall, a neighbour, who lived at No.141 and whose own house had been extensively damaged. Jimmy was a member of the Home Guard and his face and uniform were begrimed as he had been assisting all night with the rescue work. He was standing just inside the rope barricade and I called to him. He came over to me and I asked him if there was any news of Mr & Mrs Romer. There was a pause and then he asked me if I was related to them. I said I was just a friend. Then he said quietly ‘I’m sorry to say that they are both gone. Mrs Romer would have been killed instantly and Mr Romer died shortly after reaching hospital. Mrs Stone and her little girl who lived opposite are also dead. They were only found a short time ago and we think there are still more buried out there. Most of them would have been in bed’

I choked back the tears. I was stunned. I had been talking to that lovely old couple and enjoying their warm hospitality just one day before they met their horrific end. I went to work as usual and an air of gloom prevailed. Some of our customers were among the dead others were injured some seriously. A few days later a team of scientific experts from the war department visited the site. They spent much time examining the crater, which was remarkably shallow and trying to ascertain the angle of descent. One of our wardens told us that the bomb - or whatever it was - had sliced through the houses on the right side of the road and the general opinion was that it had been flying almost horizontally at the point of impact. A few weeks later a similar incident occurred in Coborn Road Bow 1 ½ miles away and although we didn’t realise at the time these two incidents were almost certainly caused by experimental versions of the V1 flying bomb or doodlebug as it came to be known and which were to cause us so much misery a few months hence.

Sixty-one years have now elapsed since that sad day. Few people will remember the Romers today. Theirs are just two names among those of 1205 other West Ham civilians recorded on the Borough Roll of Honour of Civilian Dead known to have lost their lives during the war years.

Tennyson Road has now changed significantly. An estate of neat council houses occupies the vast area laid waste by wartime bombing replacing the temporary housing of Nissen huts and pre-fabs erected in the early post war years.

I wonder how many of today’s residents are aware of the horror and heartbreak wreaked on the site of their homes all those years ago; and of the many ordinary people who paid with their lives like John and Dinah.

Such is the fortune of war.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.