大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Kathy Woollett from Hastings Library on behalf of Derek Cooper, and has been added to the site with his permission. Derek Cooper fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was 6 years old when war started in 1939, and we were living in Wandsworth in South West London. My father鈥檚 sister had already moved out to Chessington because war was imminent, you know, there were rumours of war, and the house next door to them came up for letting and they suggested that it might be good if we took it up, so we moved out just before war started. My father then volunteered for the RAF, much to my mother鈥檚 chagrin, but of course he said 鈥渨ell, I鈥檓 going to be called up anyway鈥�, (he was in the RAF right at the end of the first world war), 鈥淚 don鈥檛 want to get called up to go in the infantry, so I鈥檒l volunteer now while I鈥檝e got the chance to get in the right service鈥�.

Black Saturday

The memory that鈥檚 possibly most vivid is in September 1940, now known as Black Saturday, my father by this time had been posted to an aerodrome up in Leicestershire, and he was home on a 48 hour leave pass. His Mother still lived in Clapham, which was really just down from where we had lived in Wandsworth; we decided to go and visit her, and so we went up on the train from Chessington to Waterloo, then to Clapham Junction, and spent the afternoon going round the shops. We went home to grandmother鈥檚, in Clapham Junction for tea, and suddenly all hell broke loose! The sirens sounded and there were whistlings of bombs and my mother, who was of a very nervous disposition anyway, was terrified and cowering under the table. As an only child, I was getting all the vibes from my mother, so at that age I really became a very nervous child. We were watching from the window, and this of course is when they bombed the docks, the first bombing of London really, and the sky was absolutely crimson, it was incredible, just looking East towards the docks. The feeling was a mixture of both amazement and, as the next whistle of a bomb was heard, a sense of the fearfulness of it. It was extraordinary, the colour of the sky just seemed to be all round us. The overall sound, apart from the bombs, was of the ringing of the fire engines bells. In some irony, that afternoon I鈥檇 pestered my Dad to buy me a clockwork fire engine, and I can remember saying 鈥淚鈥檝e got one too!鈥�. It was a very mixed sort of feeling. Then I think we had tea. Of course, as we heard later, there were certain targets in the docks, and a rum warehouse was hit, and all the flaming spirit was just spilling out apparently, with all sorts of other flammable materials just going up and fuelling the flames. We managed to get the last train from Waterloo before they closed the stations, which was lucky, they closed most of the mainline stations in the early evening. There was a total sense of chaos, and panic, with fire engines coming from all directions. Of course nobody had telephones, and thinking back, we left poor grandmother there; we saw her down into the public shelter. There were other brothers and sisters in the area, but we had no way of finding out whether she, or my mother鈥檚 mother over in Camberwell were OK. You just communicated with little scribbled notes through the post, 鈥渉eavy bombing today, but we鈥檙e still OK鈥�. Then we just got used to these nightly raids, for the whole winter of 鈥�40/鈥�41. Very soon war was life, as I got older. That was it, the status quo. Every night we would have air raids, with bombers passing over to London, but because targeting wasn鈥檛 accurate often we鈥檇 get stray bombs, and I know from reading that some of the younger German pilots often used to panic and let their bombs go, so there was bombing from London down.

Air raids and flying bombs

Later my father was back in Leicestershire, so Mum and I were on our own. We didn鈥檛 have a shelter, I think my father didn鈥檛 want to dig up the garden, so we never had an Andersen shelter, but we had some neighbours. This was rather clever actually, the son was an excellent builder, and he had built himself a house, rather a pair of houses, really grand, one for his parents and one for himself. He worked out logically that a bomb, as soon as it struck anything, would explode, so what鈥檚 the point of having a shelter in the garden, because if you got a direct hit, the shelter would be shattered? So he cleared a room in his house, a downstairs room, took all the floorboards up, dug down in the footings and put an Andersen shelter indoors; as he said, if a bomb hits the roof or the chimney, it鈥檒l explode, and all the rubble will come down on the shelter and we鈥檒l be safe. So every time the sirens went off, his father would come round, lift me out of bed and my mother would then follow, grabbing what was necessary and we鈥檇 go off and spend the night in this basement shelter, which was a lot warmer and drier than outside, quite an elite thing. Then my father came home, in about 1942, invalided out, having contracted TB and very severe arthritis. It had been a very bad winter, with lots of snow. He had been made a temporary Military Policeman and he had to patrol the perimeter of the aerodrome, as a guard, in just his uniform, no greatcoat. He had a sentry post, and he said that in the worst of the blizzards he would take cover and after a while find there was a snow drift blocking him in. I can remember him being home when the first V1s came over, in about 鈥�44. I recall very early in the morning, it was just getting light, I was up with him and we heard this strange sort of engine sound. He went to the front door and called me saying 鈥渉ey there鈥檚 an aeroplane in trouble up there, is it one of ours?鈥�. There was this strange distinctive sound, a sort of growling, and flames shooting out of this silhouette against the dawn sky, and suddenly the engine stopped, and a few minutes later there was this almighty explosion, which kind of blew us back, although it was probably a couple of miles away. 鈥淲hat the hell was that? he must have been carrying a lot of fuel鈥�. Of course we heard on the news later, that Hitler had launched a new weapon, the V1 rocket. By that time, having more or less accepted warfare as the norm, we became resigned to the situation, and we learnt quite quickly that the V1s were OK as long as the engine was going, but as soon as the engine stopped run for cover! Of course where we lived in Surrey they used to come right overhead, on their way to London, which was obviously the target. I have vivid mental pictures of these bombs; underneath they were painted duck egg blue, then camouflage brown and olive green or grey brown on the top. I can remember them coming right over the house; it almost became a game of dare, watching to see if they were going further on. Then the engine would cut out and you鈥檇 know some other poor person would cop it, so many of them fell short. Then there was an incredible technique of fighter pilots, where they flew very close alongside the bomb, raised their wing tip enough to alter the air flow over the bomb鈥檚 wing, which altered its trim so it turned round and went back. If they could do it close enough to the coast they could divert the bomb so it would fall into the sea. We got quite blas茅, despite the frisson of unease as bombs came over. We鈥檇 play in the street, although quite a few bombs did drop around us; we found the best part of a flying bomb wreckage in a patch of woodland that me and my best friend used to frequent, almost all there, but mangled. And of course we collected sculptural bits of shrapnel, which became a kind of currency at school, we鈥檇 swap bits of shrapnel.

Sent to the bomb shelter with Gladys

At school we were lucky enough to have a really large playing field. All around the perimeter they鈥檇 dug shelters, which looked like long humps and in the early forties we spent most of our schooling down these shelters. I can remember the first air raid siren when I was at school, I remember how nervous I was. We鈥檇 had lots of drill where the teacher said 鈥渋f the siren sounds you must all stand by your desks and wait for me to tell you what to do next鈥�, so came the first siren we all stood by our desks, and she went to the door, opened it and held it open saying 鈥渘ow wait until I tell you what to do鈥�. I saw this gap; I was not near it, more in the middle of the class, and I thought 鈥渃an I 鈥� can I go for that?鈥� and I went, whoosh, just before she put her hand down, and ran home. Home was not too far from the school so I ran and ran and ran, and of course my mother said 鈥渨hat are you doing, what are you doing home? You should have stayed at school, they鈥檝e got shelters鈥�. By that time my father used to come home for lunch, so he took me back to school on the back of his bike and said 鈥測ou must stay in school 鈥� what if you鈥檇 got bombed on the way home鈥�. But still I was absolutely petrified every time the sirens went. The thing was, I must have attempted to run out a few more times, because I remember my parents were called up to the school and told that I had to go down the shelters which were quite safe. I remember the head teacher saying 鈥渘ow has he got any brothers or sisters, or relatives at the school?鈥�. Well I had a cousin, a girl, Gladys, who was a year older than me, so they said 鈥減erhaps we can make arrangements for him to go down the shelter with her鈥�, which helped for a bit. In the end, though, it cured me because every time the siren went it was a case of 鈥渞ight Derek, off you go and find Gladys鈥�. I had to go down the shelter with all the girls. Very soon my friends would say 鈥渨hy d鈥檡ou have to go down the shelter with the girls?鈥�; and I鈥檇 say 鈥渨ell 鈥� um 鈥� dunno really鈥�, so very soon this cured me. Down the shelter, which was cold and damp, there was very little we could do, there we were all crammed together, knees almost touching so we sang songs, played I spy, and had spelling bees and a bit of mental arithmetic. And that was school, every day, down the shelters, we just got used to it. It was a difficult time to be growing up.

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