大象传媒

War was declared on September the third 1939, and the first thing they did in London
was to evacuate the children. I remember being taken with my sister Renee who had to go as well, all the buses that were to take us to London and the main line railway stations were lined up in Cotton street and in Woolmore street where our school was located. I was particularly pleased that Mum had packed me fried egg sandwiches, a rare treat, little did I know where we were going to.
The bus journey is not in my memory, but I do remember the train, this was because of the continual fight to look out of the train windows. When the train arrived at our destination all was confusion, Renee and I had been told to stay together as we were brother and sister, but somewhere Renee vanished and I was taken with other boys to Sunninghill, I know it must have been late as it was very dark, we were taken to various houses were the people would come out and look us over and make their choice, I must have been very unsavoury, nobody wanted me, I was finally taken in by Mr & Mrs Cooper , No 1 Willow or Railway cottages, I am not completely sure, but I do know now that I was in Berkshire and Renee was in Buckinghamshire.
If we had been together it probably would have been easier for the two of us being separated from our parents the way we were, I was 6, and Renee was 11.
I would not say that Mrs Cooper was vindictive, but she was not a kindly person either, and she had a son named Victor aged about 12, and he never liked me or the other evacuee who was there. Malcolm, his name, was a bedwetter, he was the same age as me and I had stopped wetting the bed years ago, but after a while, I began to make mistakes, not really surprising considering the circumstances, but he never missed. As a result we were both tarred with the same brush and every morning the pair of us took a whacking, it did not matter that my bed might be dry, I got it as well.
When we came home from school, I know I went to school but have no real memories of it, we were not allowed into the house until 6 o'clock in the evening, winter or summer, rain or shine. I have memories of being at the bottom of their very long garden surrounded by huge sun flowers. After our evening meal we were sometimes
allowed to watch Victor play with his train set, but only to watch, any move to touch any part of it and Victor would lash out and we would be shot off to bed with extra warnings as to what would happen in the morning if Malcolm did his usual party piece.
One weekend Mum came, Mrs Cooper had told me that she was coming so obviously letters had been written. It was great seeing my mother again, the time soon came for her to go and I let loose a flood of tears. But next weekend she came back and in a short while my bag was packed and we were off back to Poplar.
Much later in life I was to wonder how little Malcolm got on.
I was home a lot earlier than Renee, she had a miserable time of it as well. The people she were living with must have had some money as they had a car, they brought her to Sunninghill to see me one weekend. When she was brought back to Poplar I was under strict orders not to let her know how long I had been home, she thought that I had been brought home at the same time as she.
So we were both home in time for the Blitz. One the first things I found that was
different were the surface air raid shelters that had been erected in Cook street, these were strange buildings, a single entrance with a very small emergency exit, brick built with a solid, thick concrete roof. If a bomb came down close by it would blow the walls in and the roof would come down to crush you, a very poor excuse for a shelter. There was no lighting of course, and before they were put to their proper use they were used for a variety of sports. One was if you had left it too late or lived too far away, and of course it became the proverbial mine field, and you had to know your way about in there if you did not want to tread in something unmentionable. When on Saturday September seventh 1940 Hitler dropped his bombs on London for the first time, nobody bothered to look at the floor only at the sky.
When the sirens first sounded on that very bright warm day, I was playing in Cook street, and immediately all the people came out of the little houses and rushed to the shelters gathering all the children with them, as a result I was not allowed to go home but had to go into the shelter. Back home my mother was frantic, the German bombers
were over head , bombs were exploding all over the East End, and no Jimmy. As soon as the all clear sounded my three sisters were sent out searching for me, and for Mum there was a happy ending.

Another change in the scenery was the Barrage Balloon site in the grounds of Poplar church across the main road from us, I remember one day that the balloon went out of control and that the crew were trying to bring it down to earth, it was zooming and diving in a huge circle over our heads, gradually getting lower all the time, until it reached a point where the cable it was attached to began to saw the chimney pots and tiles off the houses in Newby Place. it did a lot of damage before they got it down.

Coming back to September 7th 1940, I can recall that we were still in the streets when the German formations were passing over head in the same direction I set out on my initial foray into the world, Westward straight along the East India Dock road, only the Germans were in the sky. We stood watching them go by as if they were in a grand parade, I can not recall any gun fire, just the monotonous drone of the engines. All the aeroplanes glittered in the brilliant sunshine like an enormous shoal of fish. Then as I have said we were rushed into the shelter of those dubious brick built air raid shelters as supplied for the proletariat.
When the initial raid was over and the lull brought the all clear and I was returned to my family in safety, I was allowed to go outside the house but not out of sight, we lived very close to the main road and I was able to see great clouds of smoke in the sky, and a sight that like all the things of that time that has always stuck in my mind, the huge line of buses and trolley buses out side Poplar church, the crews were all taking shelter in the crypt. Which is where we went when the sirens started up again, it was dark and damp down there, but a lot safer than the air raid shelters. More smoke and flames when we came out again, this time from the wharehouses in the East India Dock, this was very close to home, a matter of a few hundred yards.This was enough for Dad, he decided that the target was the docks so he was taking us out of it, and so we were gathered together and set out the West end of London, he must have thought we would be safer there.
I can remember being in Charing Cross road, Dad would always take us kids to London to see the sights so I did actually know where I was, he took us into the Black & White milk bar, we had often been in there before for a bowl of tomato soup, a family treat. And from there he took us into the Tatler cinema which at that time showed cartoons continuously, I expect he was desperate to get us under cover any where. I have no idea what his plans were, but by now it was quite dark so it must have been getting late. During the cartoon show we heard the air raid warning sirens again, the theatre manager came out onto the stage and said that he thought we would all be safer in an air raid shelter rather than the theatre, but Dad made no move to go nor do I remember any rush to the exits by any one else. I expect they were people just like us with nowhere else to go.
So the cartoons rolled on, now we could hear gun fire, and we began to hear and feel the bombs exploding, gradually it got louder and louder and the theatre began to shake as the bombs got closer. The manager came out this time and said that we had to leave, he was stopping the show and closing the theatre. I was very disappointed, they were showing a cartoon called "Big Chief Ugga Mug Ugh", and to this day I do not know what happened to the Chief or all his wives.
Out side the theatre it was a completely different world to the one we had last seen when we went into the Tatler. The noise was terrific, cracking explosions sounding all the time, bombs or guns I do not know, and it was totally black every where except the sky, and that was blood red, it kept flaring and dying but it was like the end of the world. No buses were running, the only motors you could hear came from the sky, and they had a peculiar sound, like a Wah Wah Wah, very uneven. Other sounds were the bells of the fire engines and ambulances. I do not know how we got there but we arrived at a building called Toc H, and we were allowed in to take shelter under the building itself, I can remember playing with another boy, he had an aeroplane and let me play with it, everybody just seemed to be sitting or laying down sleeping. And I must have gone to sleep for I remember waking up seeing people coming down the stairs in their night clothes carrying blankets. The sound of the bombing was as loud if not louder than ever, so the raids must have been getting heavier and nearer to the centre of London.
In the morning walking the streets towards home, where else could we go? the sun was shining through the clouds of smoke from the burning buildings, and under our feet was the loose debris, bricks, roof tiles and glass. Toc H was down by the Minories and Dad took us up towards Aldgate, I think he must have been told that he could not go down the Commercial road because although that was the direct way home we went down the Whitechapel road and the Mile End road, all the time taking slight detours from the damaged buildings, crunching broken glass under our feet. We turned down Burdett road heading towards Limehouse, and you could smell the smoke all the time, coming towards the Eastern public house,[it is called Plums now] we could see flames right across the road and I can remember Mum saying that we had better go back to find another way through to Poplar, but we kept walking and finally could see that the flames were not across the road, they were a reflection in the unbroken windows of shops from a gas main in the middle of the East India Dock road that had been hit by a bomb. From there to Ida street was not all that far and we finally got home to find No 2 untouched from the bombing. I remember that myself and my sisters searching for our cat Mary, but we never saw her again.

One of my mothers brothers arrived with a large coal lorry. he insisted that we pack up and go to live with him until they could find somewhere to live in Rush Green where my Uncle Jim & Aunt Liz lived. I found out later that my father did want to get out of Poplar, but was most upset that it would be on the back of a dirty coal lorry.
And so I did shake the dust of Poplar off my boots, my family did as well as we never returned, not to live that is, and we all left memories.

The only thing I remember on the journey to Rush Green was lots of smoke and bombed buildings , and the only one that I recognised was the smoking shell of Trinity church, I knew that because Dad had taken me there once before the war after he had been to pay his union dues at his branch secretaries house. And I remember that house as well, the plaster was off the walls and ceiling in great lumps, and I remember picking at the plaster between the laths.

And so we came to 88 Barton Avenue, Uncle & Aunt Jim & Liz had three children, Betty was the eldest, followed by Alec & Pat, I am not sure of the sleeping arrangements, I can only remember sleeping in the air raid shelter. This was an Anderson type shelter, about 10 ft x 6ft approximately, set 3 ft into the ground with concrete walls and floor, and the rest of the walls and roof were made of thick corrugated galvanised iron. then it was covered with the earth that was dug out to make way for the shelter, by the end of the war it was recognised that they were very safe, it took a direct hit or one very close to destroy them, and many lives were saved because of them.

But Uncle Jim`s shelter must have been a special one. He was a Blacksmith by trade and a very handy man, he had built tiers of bunks in there and I am sure that it was a larger than standard size, he was the kind of man who would find things that could be useful and would take them home for safe keeping in case the article got stolen, this is where the bunks came from and I am sure that he would have greased someone's palms to get an extension for the shelter. I say all this because it was discovered that at one time there were 17 of us sleeping down there. Another of my mothers sisters and her two children also came to live there for a while. This was my Aunt Mag Sims with my two cousins Johnny and Pat, the three of us slept in one bunk. Aunt Mags husband Harry was at sea on oil tankers, we hardly ever saw him.
My cousin Alec was twice my age, one night in the shelter, which as you can imagine was very crowded, and difficult to move about in,well Alec accidentally or not banged Aunt Mags backside, unfortunately for him and Aunt Mag, she had a large boil there and he hit right on it. Wow! did she go to town on him, he must have been sore for weeks. But some time after that she got her revenge. There was a large Po for the use of, and one morning he had got up to go to the house, while he was gone Aunt Mag decided that the Po must go, outside that is, now there was quite a trick to this because as you can understand after a long night with 17 bodies possibly needing relieving it would be full to the brim. This particular morning Mag was under pressure, it was full and it was very heavy, the pot was heavy enough on it`s own. So
she decided that it was going to be to much to get it out of the shelter and up to the house for the usual way of disposal, she got to the top of the steps and heaved it out, just as Alec was bending down to get back in. he took it right in the face and would never believe that it was an accident.
When the air raid warning sounded, which it did every day and night for 3 months in that summer of 1940, all the kids were packed off to the shelter. It has just occurred to me, given the amount of space there was in that shelter, and the amount of bodies that slotted in there. I have just realised how clever my Uncle Jim was. He had built the Tardis long before Dr Who came along.
Well we were all in the shelter for the night, Aunt Mag had to look after my cousin Pat, she was about 7 or 8 months old then and needed attention so that left my mother with Aunt Liz to clear away the debris of the evening meal and wash up, on this night Liz came to the shelter before Mum who was clearing up in the kitchen. the raid was in full swing, over head you had the monotonous uneven drone of the Luftwaffe, the guns at Whalebone Lane were blasting away at them, and the search lights swept the sky. on some nights if the elders thought it was safe they would let us stand at the shelter entrance and look at the pyrotechnics over head. Thats how I saw the oil tanks at Purfleet burning, it took three days and nights to put it out, it must have been a wonderful beacon too, for the Germans to aim for.
Back to the story, Mum was in the kitchen and patrolling the veranda that he had built himself was my Uncle, he was watching the sky and listening to the sounds of the bombs getting nearer and realised that the light from the kitchen was shining through, not only was this a punishable crime, it was bloody dangerous
He leapt to the door and called out to my mother "Put out the light Chris", she thought he said "Run for your life Chris", this she did, unfortunately for Jim the door opened outwards, even worse he was right outside the door. When Mum got to the shelter she asked about his whereabouts, but they had not seen him, so being naturally concerned Mum and Liz went back to the house where the back door stood wide open with the light streaming out in competition with Purfleet, and there by the door trying to stand up was Jim asking for another pint, just like the last one. luckily he was not badly hurt, but he never stood behind the door again.

Uncle Jim liked to brew beer and wine, and this was an advantage as beer and spirits were in very short supply, and while we were there, there were parties. People then had very little going for them and so had to make their own entertainment, my Uncle Jim was an expert at this, a very funny man. One of the many dances he would do was to the music of the"Ritual Fire Dance", he would do this with a bed sheet over him, the light would be turned off and he had a torch under the sheet with him, round and round he would whirl, screaming and wailing to the rhythm of the music with the torch flashing under the sheet. Would go down like a lead balloon today.
As I said he liked to brew his own liquor, he got a batch out one night and as he opened a bottle, the top suddenly shot off and a fountain of beer shot towards the ceiling like a Saturn 5 and splattered all over it. The ceiling was stained for the rest of the war, or as they would say then, for the "duration".

Eventually Mum found a house to let in Laurel Crescent, No 58. There was already a shelter in the garden, and as the bombing was still non-stop Chris, Maisie, Renee and my self took up residence as soon as we moved in. The first night in there was burned into the memory cells of Chris, Renee and myself. Maisie does not remember a thing, she woudn`t, she slept all night. Dad had fixed us up with a small battery powered light. At Uncle Jim`s there was electric light. Our problem was Maisie, she spread her self out in the middle of the mattress and promptly "died", but it was in the fashion of her "death" that caused us our problems, she lay like a huge Boa Constrictor curled and twisted in quite an extraordinary way, and if we tried to take advantage of curling up in the space she left, she would promptly roll over and crush you against the wall if you were not quick enough to get out of her way.
All night this went on, and very slowly the battery in the lamp got weaker and weaker until all that could be seen was the dull red glow of the bulb filament, and we three watched it all night. I can not recall how the problem was solved, but it was never as bad as that again.

Still on the shelter at 58, as we were often sent to the shelter even if there was no raid on, Mum would come down to us with a large jug of cocoa at 9 o`clock, she would give us our night cap and then set off for the house where Dad was. On one particular night Dad was waiting for her outside the back door, but she could not see him. It was a very dark night and there wasn`t a light to be seen anywhere, at that time there wasn`t even a footpath laid in the garden and Mum had great difficulty walking on the rough muddy ground as well as being almost blind, the only guide she had was that the shape of the house showed faintly darker than the night sky, so she aimed for the point where she knew the back door would be. All this time Dad was watching her stumbling up the garden, he had been outside for a while and his eyes had got accustomed to the dark, whereas Mum had just come out of the shelter where we had light. She slowly made her way near the house still not seeing Dad, and as she reached him he grabbed her arm saying "I`ve got you". She very nearly passed out, then as she recovered she gave him the edge of her tongue and never ever let him forget it.

After we had been at 58 a while my mothers mother came to live with us, Granny O`Keefe. she was very old and her mind was not in good condition, and I have to admit to exploiting this situation. She would give me pocket money every week, the princely sum of sixpence, still in those days sixpence would buy you 5lbs of King Edwards, and sometimes Granny would say to me "Have I given you your pocket money Jimmy", and I would say "No Gran" with a very straight face.

Black out was a problem and the air raid wardens came down very hard on people who showed a chink of light. Dad made big frames and covered them with black tar paper, and each night the "blackout" had to go up before it got dark. One night when the usual air raid was on, Granny was out in the kitchen clearing up and washing up, came a knock at the door. "Your showing a light" said the warden, "Oh dear" said Dad, and they went to the back of the house. Total darkness was all that could be seen. "I was sure the light came from here" said the warden, and he went away looking for the guilty party. The Germans were circling above dodging the best efforts of the searchlight crews, and the AA guns at the Whalebone Lane gun site were sending salvoes up into the night sky. 5 minutes later the warden was back "It is you" he said "You are showing a bright light" he said, round the back they went again, total darkness greeted them. The warden was positive, so Dad took him into the house, he went to the kitchen where Granny was just finishing, "Have you opened the back door Mum" he asked her, "Yes Jim, there`s a terrible storm out there and I`ve been looking at the thunder and lightning", soon after that she was taken into a home in Tooting Bec.

The Coopers Arms in Rush Green became Dad`s local, it was also Uncle Jim`s, and when Uncle Alec & Aunt Kate moved in next door to us at No 56, it became Alec`s local as well. And so what with other people some of whom Dad knew from the docks, they had also got out of the East End for safety, It could be quite lively if they all arrived for a drink on the same night. On one such night, and this is Dad`s story, they were in there drinking, when somebody came in and mentioned that an "Oil bomb" had dropped in Laurel Crescent. Dad immediately left his drink and dashed for the door. Blinded by going from the bright lights in the pub to a pitch black night, remember no street lights, he managed to run straight into the open door of a taxi that was outside. He came home wearing a lovely black eye and found us unharmed and no "Oil bomb" in Laurel Crescent, as I say that was Dad`s story. Later in life having grown up somewhat and knowing how quick he could be with his fists, I have often wondered if he met someone just that bit quicker than him that night.

On July 20th 1944, there was an attempt to kill Adolf Hitler by Germans who could see that there was no way that Germany could win the war and wanted to sue for peace with the Allies. I was playing at the bottom of the garden with my lead soldiers, and there was a wide access alley that ran the length of the road at the bottom of the the gardens, when the news of the failed attempt came through my mother along with Aunt Kate, Mrs Bicks who lived in Rose Glen and their house backed on to ours on the other side of the alley, and 2 or 3 other women, gathered in the alley to discuss the
failed attempt and any thing else that might come to mind as women will, especially if it is a bit of scandal, and there was plenty during the war.The group were talking quite loudly when I heard my Aunt Kate say "I wish it had blown his cock off". Loud screams of laughter, followed by lots of nudging as they spotted me, then burst out laughing again.

Some time during the war Dad had to belong to the Fire Watch, this is a bit like the Neighbourhood Watch of today, only the men living in the street had no choice.
Every house was supplied with a 5 gallon oil drum painted black with a large white "W", on the side, plus a stirrup pump with a short hose attached to put out small fires, this had to stand on the front porch. Dad`s duties as a member of the fire watch was to be on duty at prescribed times in the event of an air raid, and this was always late at night, the Germans were never considerate enough to come over at a reasonable time so that we could all get a good nights sleep.
But one night they did come over before I had to be in bed, it was fairly quiet, no planes could be heard after the sirens had sounded, so I asked Dad if I could stand on the porch with him, and he said yes. Then we began to hear the dreaded drone of the German bomber coming, and so did the search light batteries, suddenly the fingers of the beams began to move across the night sky searching for the bomber. There! they picked it up in one beam and held it, rapidly the other beams swept across the sky to all join up with the bomber firmly held in the centre, slowly it moved over our heads, still held in the beams. Suddenly the anti aircraft batteries at Whalebone Lane and Barking Park opened up, the terrific crack of the guns firing was deafening, then the smaller Bofors guns joined in and you could follow the shots as they went up towards the enemy aircraft as every other shell was a tracer, then we began to see the shells from the big three point seven guns bursting all round the bomber. And all the while the bomber flew steadily over head in a straight line. Now we could hear the sound of shrapnel falling on to the roof tops, Dad pulled me back behind him. Slowly the bomber flew on until it was out of range of both gun sites, other guns took up the firing , and gradually it moved out of sight and hearing. I do not no if it got back to Germany but it never got hit while we were watching. With all my pals we had a great time in the morning finding bits of shrapnel from the shell casings.

On another such quiet night I was again out there with Dad, again the sirens had finished wailing a long time ago and nothing had happened, then very quickly and very low down an aeroplane came over flying very fast, one engine was on fire, not much but that was how we saw it, then just as quickly it was gone with a roar, as we turned to keep it in sight down the side of the house there was a sudden ear shattering burst of cannon fire over our heads, the sky lit up from the gun flashes, then we heard the roar of the night fighters engines as it flashed by above our heads, we hadn`t even heard it coming.

Later on they installed batteries of rockets at Whale Bone Lane and when they fired them the whole sky would be lit up as the whole battery would be fired at the same time going up to the heavens with an enormous continuous "Whoosh". Again when I was out there with Dad we had watched the spectacle of the rockets, and after some time had elapsed, the whole house shook as something landed in the front garden. In the morning Dad dug out about 3ft of tail pipe from a spent rocket, I pleaded with him to let me keep it but he took it up to the wardens hut at the top end of Laurel Crescent. When Mum saw how close it was to the house it frightened the life out of her.

Obviously at this time of the war people were fed up with life in the shelters and after the initial onslaught of the Blitz which lasted about 3 months, the bombing eased off and became spasmodic, so they came out of the shelters and slept again in the comfort of the beds, only rushing to the shelter if it got very bad. But when the Flying Bombs began to come over, they drove the people back down there. Barton Avenue was one of the first places in London to be hit by a "Doodle Bug" as they became to be known, and at the time it landed nothing was known about them, the public that is, the very first 2 or 3 were reported as crashing bombers. The night of the Barton Avenue bomb raid was a normal one for our family, we were all in bed, the sirens woke us up and very quickly we heard the sound of it`s engine, we had never heard it before, but we would again and we would never forget it`s peculiar motor cycle sound. I was sleeping in the back bedroom at that time,[ we shifted about quite a lot] and as I looked out of the window it passed directly over head, when I saw the flame from the tail pipe I shouted to Dad that it was on fire, very soon we heard the roar of the doodlebug hitting the houses in Barton Avenue, fortunately for Mum it was at the other end of the road from where her brother Jim lived.

Our turn in Laurel Crescent came one lovely summer Sunday morning. When ever Dad could he would take me to the Central Park pitch and putt golf course, where we could enjoy the very basic rudiments of golf, and we were well on our way round the course when the sirens sounded, and quite soon we heard and saw the flying bomb coming towards us, but this one did not fly in a straight line like all the others we had seen, it was twisting and turning as if there was a pilot on board. We found out later it had been damaged by the guns, but it had not been destroyed, no one knew which way to go, normally they flew straight and level, very fast, and if you heard the engine cut out over head you knew you were safe. But not with this one, Dad and I watched it`s haphazard flight and then saw it dive to the ground, there was no noise at first, we saw a huge fountain of debris and smoke shoot up and then seconds later the awful boom of the explosion. Dad knew that the bomb had gone down very near to the chimney of Rush Green Hospital, and that is very close to No 58, he rushed me to the side of the park close by where Uncle Jim`s house was, which was actually on the edge of the park. He called out to Jim who got his ladders out so that we could climb over the railings and told his brother in law of his fears. Jim immediately got a cycle from somewhere and Dad set off home. I stayed for a little while and then Jim got his son Alec to take me home which was some two and a half miles away, when we got to the entrance of Lincoln Avenue, the police had the road cordoned off, and it took some time to convince the policemen that I did live in Laurel Crescent, eventually they let me through, but not my cousin Alec, they said no to him. The bomb had landed in the road in Rose Glen some hundred and fifty yards from our house, looking across you could see that about 8 houses had vanished and all the houses around them were devastated. At 58 all the tiles were gone from the roof facing the direction of the blast, similarly all the windows facing the blast were blown in. Inside the house all the ceilings were down with out exception, this was a big blow to me as I had made a great many balsa wood model aeroplanes, Spitfires, Hurricanes, Dorniers, Heinkels etc , and they had all been suspended from my bedroom ceiling which at that time was the box room, and of course I lost them all. But that was small beer considering every thing else. nobody got hurt except Renee who gashed her wrist later by putting her hand through a broken window cutting her wrist in doing so, she was taken to the hospital.

The emergency repair services were on the scene fairly quickly, they were well organised by now, and I can remember teams of RAF men doing most of the work, which they did very cheerfully, they always had something to laugh about, Mum didn`t but there was little else she could do. They covered all the windows with a white plastic type material, and covered the roof with huge tarpaulins, gradually for us life returned to normal. I have often thought about Dad having to go to work leaving Mum with all problems that the bomb had brought, food had to be prepared and cooked, I had to be seen to for it was common knowledge that left alone I would not wash or clean my teeth, clothes had to be washed, ironed etc, and this was all being done in an almost bombed out house. I am not sure whether she was working at Briggs Bodies then helping to build Wellington bombers.
Incidentally the RAF men also put up temporary ceiling plasterboards. They never ever did get fitted properly and are quite likely still up there.

For a long time the bombed houses were a wonderful playground for us, we were continually being chased away but we kept returning to play our games.I saw a film recently about a family during the war, and there was one scene where the children had set up a den in a bombed house with all the spoils of war, shrapnel etc. And I can relate to that, I was there.

Mum`s favourite tipple was Guiness, and Dad would get his bike out once he had eaten his dinner after he had come home from work, and set off for anywhere he could get Mum her Guiness, he cycled for miles in all weathers, fair or foul, and he wasn`t always successful, quite often he came home empty handed. It,like most things was in very short supply, but if you had the cash you could always get it on the Black Market, but Dad never had the cash. He came home one night having been successful and presented Mum with her prized Guiness, she stood it by the fire as unlike modern day trends she liked her Guiness warm. Later she poured it into a glass and stood it on the mantelpiece, I then entered the scene, I proceeded to put a saccharin tablet in the Guiness "for a laugh". Some laugh, when Mum tasted it she gave to Dad saying something was wrong with it, he knew what it was right away and that there was only one person who would be daft enough to tempt fate that way. Me! He taught me the error of my ways.

But I did make him laugh one day. He was having his tea which consisted of two boiled eggs with bread and what passed for margarine. He was eating one egg while he was reading the paper trying to understand the names of the Russian towns on the war maps printed therein. I picked up his other egg and slipped it into his cup of tea, and it completely disappeared from sight. He finished his first egg and then attempted to eat the other one, naturally it wasn`t to be seen, he asked Mum who was in the kitchen if she had given him two eggs, "Yes" was her reply, so he asked "Well where is it","Under your bleeding nose" came the reply, so he invited her to come and find it, and of course she could not. "Have you had it Jimmy", "No Mum" I replied, and in truth I had not. Well they could not make head nor tail out of it, "Only one egg for me then" he said, reaching for his cup of tea, he took a sip and found his egg. "Oh what a card" he said and I never got a wallop.

Coming back to the doodle bugs, we had been woken up by the sirens and every body made the trip to the shelter safely, once there we waited, then in the distance we could here the familiar growling noise of the flying bomb. As it got nearer it got louder, soon we knew that we were in the firing line as the sound was very loud. It`s engine suddenly cut out and the noise stopped, I think all our hearts did as well, we waited and could hear nothing, the bomb was gliding, how far would it glide? were we in it`s path? we just held our breath unable to do anything other than wait, then after what seemed an eternity, the explosion came, it was very close. In the morning we found how close, it had landed in Elm Park, which as the crow flies, just over half a mile.

The 大象传媒 Home Service during the war put out a play on Sunday afternoons, and the whole family as a rule listened to these plays especially in the long winter months. One particular play was a doomed love story set in an Arabian Nights theme, it was called "Hassan", and it was about the love of a Princess and a poor penniless boy, the father of the Princess, the Caliph, who might have been "Ramatool Uppaboy" for all I know said that the love affair must stop, but of course it never did. So the Caliph had the boy put in prison, where he was told that unless he renounced his love for the Princess he would be tortured. As the story unfolded and the family, me as much as any of them were getting right into tale of doomed love, with the promise of torture to come. I think Mum, Chris & Renee were knitting and the sound of the needles began to click faster and louder, came the sound of hollow footsteps in the dungeon, a loud rattle of a key in a lock, chains clinking, and then the first sound of the screaming Hassan as the torture began. The knitting needles clicked faster and flashed in the light from the flames from the fire, another scream! Dad got up from his chair in the corner and going to the wireless he switched it off "That`s the last bar of that" he said. "Oh Dad" wailed the captive audience, but he would not let us have it on so we never found out what happened to Hassan.
Mentioning the flames from the fire, I shall always remember how Maisie would sit as close as she could to the fire, so close that her legs would turn to a peculiar purple mottled colour. She always hogged the fireside.

Because of the war there were no toys being made but Dad always got me the latest issue from the HMSO of books about the services, or campaigns and battles. I have only just recently sold them, the man who bought them did not mind that they were in tatters, I had practically worn the print off the pages from constantly reading them. And when my eldest sister went into the ATS, she would always pester the many and various soldiers she came into contact with for spare cap badges for me. By the end of the war I had a great collection, the best badges by far were the Scottish regiments, but they vanished and I never found out where they had gone to.
Then came the day that Chris brought her future husband home for the first time. At that time I was reading the Wizard and Hotspur comics and had expected a brawny Commando to step through the door, imagine my disappointment to see Les for the first time. He was very tall and so Thin! . I thought he was a stick insect, I stared at him for a while, then said "Got any wounds?" I never lived that one down.

By now there were lots of strange soldiers to be seen in Romford, first there were the Italian prisoners of war, they could be seen from a long way off, they had large patches stitched to their uniforms in either square, round or diamond shapes. They were harmless and walked among us as if they had lived here all their lives, they were never any trouble, but no Germans, all them rascals wanted to do was to get back to Germany so that they could have another go at us, so they were under lock and key all the time. All the Allied servicemen were here and then came the Americans, and they swarmed all over the place. I remember one afternoon in Romford when some black American servicemen had done something wrong in the Star pub next to the railway station, a US army lorry drew to a halt outside and a horde of "Snowdrops", the nickname for the service police, got off and stormed the pub, moments later outside the pub the snowdrops were clubbing all the black servicemen they had dragged out, to the ground, there was claret every where. Then they were all thrown bodily into the back of the lorry.

One Sunday morning Mum and I were sitting out side the kitchen door in the sunshine shelling peas, we heard the side gate open and Mum thought it was Dad home early from work, but when we looked up it was an American soldier standing there. He asked for Maisie so Mum sent me up to wake her up and tell her who was waiting for her, when I got back downstairs he had taken over my job and was shelling peas with Mum and chatting away as if he had known her for years. I was fascinated by all his medal ribbons. Later I found they were given medals for all sorts of things, like going to the toilet and not using paper.

Just before the Allied advance in France and Belgium brought an end to the threat of the dreaded flying bomb, one came down in Gorseway, the next turning to Rose Glen where one had already landed. And at that time a boy who lived in Gorseway would, when he was at home, stand on top of his families shelter if the sirens sounded waiting to hear if a bomb was coming their way. If one did approach he would blow as loudly as he could on a whistle to let everybody around to take cover. Then one day one did approach, he manned his self appointed post and blew his whistle then went into the shelter with his family. The bomb landed directly on the shelter and the family was never found.

Another terror weapon was the V2 rocket, you never heard them coming only exploding. One of my school chums at Rush Green school, Charlie Taylor lived in an off licence with his parents at the top of Lincoln Avenue and Fourth Avenue, he also liked to make model aeroplanes but he could never get used to the idea that you had to trim the balsa wood patterns into smooth shapes before the model was assembled, he used to stick the parts together straight from the box. One night the off licence took a direct hit from a V2.

As the Allied forces built up in Gt Britain, our Allies made friends, one we found lived in Lincoln Avenue. One clear sunny Sunday morning there came the roar of engines from the sky, and right over the houses flew an RAF Lockheed Hudson bomber, I was very clued up on my aircraft recognition. It was very low, then it climbed back up into the sky, turned and headed back down towards us, with a terrific roar it passed over our heads, and I mean "our", all around in every garden every body was out looking at the flying display, again it came back over our heads then flew up and away. We heard later that it was an Australian pilot diving on his girl friends house in Lincoln Avenue, also that the police had taken the aircraft registration number and reported him.

An RAF Spitfire crash landed on Central Park, we kids all tried to get near it, but the nearest we could get to it was the fence in the Dagenham road opposite the Hospital gates, it was frustrating standing at the fence looking at this wonderful aeroplane, but not able to touch.

Another never to be forgotten sight was the huge squadrons of USAF B17 Flying Fortresses and B24 Liberator bombers flying mass formations as they set off to raid Germany. I still can not make up my mind who had the bigger formations the Germans or the Americans, they were both awesome to see, and were so big that they took so long to pass over, I will never see the likes of that again. I hope.

After the Battle of Britain when the Germans had lost the advantage of the air war against Britain and the big raids stopped during the day, the Germans adopted a new tactic. Tip and run raids by fighter bombers, they would hit the coastal towns mostly but now and the they would come inland to look for targets. One morning they hit Romford gas works as I was getting ready for school, what a racket, a sudden roar of engines and the sound of what seemed like an iron bar being run along a fence, and they were gone. From the school we could see the flames from the burning gasometers.

In the Autumn of 1944, Mum arranged with Aunt Mag that I would go "Hopping" with her down in Kent. So Mum took me to Poplar where Aunt Mag lived in Abbots road, near the Iron Bridge Tavern, soon after we got there a lorry stopped outside the house to pick us up along with my cousins Johnny and Pat, plus all Aunt Mags belongings. you have to realise that she had to take almost every thing she owned less beds and kitchen stove. With all our clothes this made it like we were moving house, which she practically was. We were to be away for two months in the hop fields. At first the driver said that Mag could not take all her gear [there were already other families on the lorry with all their stuff] Aunt Mag had other ideas and there was a terrific row which Mag won, the men got the other families off the lorry, unloaded all the gear and then they rearranged everything and reloaded the lorry and got every thing aboard plus families, but the other families did not like what had happened,
When we got to the farm[can not remember where] we met up with Aunt Maisie and her family, and the first thing we had to do was to make the communal bed in the hopping hut that was to be our home for the next two months. There was a large stack of logs for us to use, and these were placed across the floor six feet from the corrugated iron wall, then we got in bundles of faggots to fill in the space between the logs and the wall, and then spread bales of straw broken up to make the beds soft mattress. We all slept together in the one bed. I did not do much hop picking, but I carried lots of water for our use and to put in the communal kitchen, I teamed up with my cousin Dennis Jarvis, we would carry the water in buckets on a pole slung on our shoulders, that made the work a lot easier. But you had to watch out for some lazy families who would have no scruples about nicking your water from the kitchen. This was in a large brick building that only had three walls, it was wide open on one side, and there was always a fire burning and that was another of our jobs , to keep a good supply of cut wood for the fire to cook the meals on. But most of the time we just ran wild, Dennis was a year older than I and knew all the ropes. He had been going hopping for years whereas the last time I had been hopping with my mother was when I was three.
One day I became ill, Mag came home from the field one day expecting to see certain tasks done by me, but found nothing had been done and I was lying on the bed with a high temperature, so she had to do it all herself. Next day she had to take me to the farm doctor, this was miles away through the fields to another farm where the doctor had his field surgery. Oh what a journey, Mag half pulled me along, I was in a terrible state and rather fortunately slightly delirious as that made every thing dream like, but we seemed to be walking for ever. We waited our turn and the doctor examined me, I do not know what he told my aunt but we came away with either medicine or a prescription I do not know, and I do not remember much about the long walk back, but I was off my feet for four days, and I was very weak for a while. Aunt Mag had to leave me on my own during the four days as she had money to earn, but I think I slept most of the time.
And of course over our heads there was a constant stream of flying bombs heading for London, none came down near us, but the motor bike roar of the engines woke us up.
But I liked the evenings best of all, it was like a big camp fire sing song around the kitchen fire with us kids playing games. Mind you we played games in the hop fields but if we were caught there by the farmer or his men there was trouble, more than one boy or girl got a clip round the ear. Mum, Dad and Uncle Harry came down one weekend, it was good at first but when we all got into the straw bed that night it was a bit tight, there were seven of us in there. Before they went home Dad gave me a ten shilling note, a fortune! but it had to last a long time and I could not buy any sweets as they were on ration and I did not have my sweet ration card with me. Another reason why I did not pick many hops was that I would pull off leaves as well, and when the men came to empty Mags hopper they would reduce the price of the bushel so that Mag would not get the full amount, so she did not always want my help. But the smell of fresh hops is magic, I loved it, trouble is when you picked them your hands went black, they came clean when you washed them, that鈥檚 why mine stayed black.

A problem that I had as small boy with three elder sisters was that they did not share my passion for bread and jam. I thrived on it, and of course I used to devour great quantities, not that I could lay it on thickly, I was never allowed to do that. It was sheer volume that did it. I would have slice after slice, and of course the jam ration took a battering from me, so much so that my sisters demanded that they be allowed a share of the ration. So it was arranged that we would all make our selection as to what jam we would like, Mum was to get our choice and that jar would be our own to use as we chose to do.
Mine lasted three days! After that I was on plain bread and marge, and that was almost inedible. So I would sit at the table looking wistfully at the other almost full jam pots, and every now and then a deep sigh. I won in the end, they would each let me "borrow" some of theirs, until the next batch of rations, but they gave up that idea fairly quickly.
But coming back to the margarine, it was just like a greasy brick, and it took a fair temperature to get it to start to melt. To get it to spread onto the bread you would have to shave off very small amounts and as thinly as you could, otherwise the slice of bread would tear apart, it was awful stuff. Many years later when I was working in the Van den Burghens plant at Purfleet, we were repairing part of the Hydrogen plant, I asked the Foreman in charge of the unit what the hydrogen was used for, and he said that it was to make the modern day margarines spread straight from the fridge. So I suppose hydrogen was more important to the war effort than making my margarine soft. The other commodity "Butter" had vanished from the face of the earth from day one as far as the workers and their families were concerned.

Meal times when we sat down together caused some problems, especially in the summer. The trouble was that when Maisie sat down at the table to eat, she would kick off her shoes, it did not matter how many times Mum told her not to, every meal time off came her shoes. Unfortunately Maisie had horrible feet, they were not only visibly obscene, they didn`t half hum. We could never keep a Canary.

In 1943 or 4, Errol Flynn came to the local cinemas in the shape of Robin Hood, what a man. And after we kids had all been to see the film, it was over to our own "Sherwood" forest, the willow woods over the back of the Chase, a large area of woodland and derelict sand pits, a boys paradise. Over there we made our bows and arrows, and our staves, and would re-enact the film. Staves would crack knuckles and that made your eyes water, and arrows would fly through the air. Frankie Torts shot one into the air. There came a cry of pain and Alan Lund had lost an eye. It slowed down after that.

Something else that bothered me as a boy, was queuing outside the Ritz cinema. At that time it was waste land along side the Ritz with a low fence all round. On the waste ground the government had placed one of the hundreds temporary water supply tanks in the event of fire due to bombing. I do not no how deep they were, but to me they were very deep, probably about six feet I do not no. My fear was that as I was standing there waiting to get in to the pictures, it would collapse, and I would be in the way.

Staying in Romford, they had one of many "War Weeks" this was to raise cash for the war effort, and all sorts of things would be introduced to make you pay to go on various military vehicles, but one week in Romford market the Navy fitted out a submarine, yes a submarine in the market place! They built a false conning tower over a manhole in the middle of the road, and another over a manhole some hundred yards away. This I had to see. I waited my turn to get in, it took a long time and I should have smelt a rat. I did later on. Finally it was my turn to climb up the ladder into the wooden conning tower, inside I then climbed down a straight ladder, through the man hole and down into the sewers, then it was a case of shuffling slowly along looking at coloured pictures of jolly jack tars, paintings of dials and gauges, wheels and levers. The smell was not as bad as Maisies feet but near enough. Finally after what seemed for ever it was my turn to climb out, with relief. I think the main reason it took so long to get out was the ladies problems climbing up that vertical ladder. When it was my turn a lot later I went into the RAF. Phew! you can keep submarines.

Something that was very common in those days were the peasouper fogs we used to get. They were so bad you could not see your hand behind your back, but they really were bad. One night there was one such fog, and when the bus that Dad was on got to the Merry Fiddlers, the driver would go no further. So Dad had to walk home from there. On his way he would have to avoid the Dagenham Civic Centre, the council offices, they did tend to spread their wings across your path. And to make it more interesting they had placed lovely ornamental ponds right the length of the building. Dad found them and had to go the rest of the way squelching in soaking wet shoes and trousers.

A thing we do not see nowadays is the frozen condensation on the windows when you woke up in the mornings in the winter. Jack Frost they called it. Bloody cold I called it. There was no central heating or double glazing then. Beautiful zig zag patterns there were, with Mum saying "Leave the curtains alone", they were all stuck to the glass.

I have said how we would go to the shelter if the air raid warning sounded in the night, but the sirens did not always sound in time. One night this did happen, I was sleeping in the front bedroom with Renee at this stage of the war. there was of course a curtain strung across the middle of the room. I mean I was a growing lad and I did not want Renee spying on me. Any way on this night we were abruptly woken up by the guns of Whalebone Lane letting go with a salvo, that plus the flashes from the guns made me think it was bombs, and I remember shouting at Renee that it was bombs, the whole family met at the top of the stairs and I think we all came down at the same time, all I know that suddenly we were all in the shelter listening to the guns.

One of the few "Free" recreations to be had during the war in the summer months was swimming, this we kids could do over Palmers sand pits behind the water works in South street near Roneo Corner. you could get to them by way of Rom Crescent off Rush Green road, this led to a dirt road which came out alongside the slaughter house opposite Oldchurch Hospital. The pits are not there now, one has been filled in and is now known as Oldchurch Park, I am not sure about the other, but the dirt road is now a wide new road, at the Romford end is the ice rink. But during the war they were our swimming holes, and not just for us, mothers would bring their young children and make a day of it with picnics on the grass and paddling for the children. And that is where I got sunstroke. I had already had the skin of my back off. I had got burnt the day before and at that time Mum was working at Briggs Bodies down Chequers Lane, and she had brought home a first aid box and in was a substance called Brittanic Acid Jelly, I was in severe pain from the self inflicted wound, so Mum smothered my back with the jelly which had been developed for burns. The pain stopped within minutes and when I undressed that night to go to bed, a shower of dead skin came off when I pulled my shirt off, it was the finest cure there ever was and I have never seen it
since. But the next night after another day in the scorching sun, I had sunstroke which lasted three days. Most of it I know nothing about, but Mum told me later that on the first night I had gone to the bathroom, locked myself in then could not open the door, my shouting woke the family, and Mum and Dad took a long time before they could get me to open the door. Eventually I did, and after they had made a fuss of me and calmed me down Mum got me into bed in the box room where I was now sleeping, after a little while Dad heard something, got out of bed and as he looked out to my room, I looked out as well at him. I went hysterical and it took most of the night before I went to sleep again. The next night I did exactly the same, but I was not so bad the third night. All I can remember was that in my nightmare, Men wearing old fashioned three cornered hats were building wooden houses on my chest and I was having great difficulty breathing. Weird. It could have been worse, I was at the pits one day when they pulled a boy from the water who somehow had managed to drown surrounded by other swimmers. On another day, I was with Patsy Morris and Ron Salter when we found a stack of tins of corned beef hidden in a hollow tree, but we made too much fuss about it and some very much bigger boys relieved us of our booty.

Another prize I lost was a stick of raw sugar cane. Uncle Harry had come home for a spot of shore leave, and at that time Aunt Mag had taken a house in Lincoln Avenue to be near Mum. We were round to see him and he gave me the sugar cane telling me that he got it in Jamaica, I was well pleased and I was determined to share my pleasure, so next day I took it to school where I showed Mrs Bradshaw, she was very pleased this offering and thanked me. That was the last I saw of it. Who wants a rotten old bit of sugar cane anyway?
IF
HITLER
HAD
BEEN
GOOD
WOULD
WE
HAVE
CENTRAL
HEATING
TODAY?

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