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14th January 1993 Dear Ian
In response to your phone call tonight, while grandma is sorting through the photographs, I will attempt to gather some memories and hope to get them down in some sort of order.

My family lived in South Norwood, a South Eastern suburb of Greater London. We rented part of a large house. The family who owned the house lived on the ground floor. The father was in the Territorial Army, usually called the Part-Time army, or weekend soldiers. Within one week of war being declared, he had to report to the local barracks.

Some months later, most of our school was evacuated out of London, to Brighton, on the South coast, split up into groups and spread around different schools in the area. About 40 of us, all senior boys were fortunate enough to be kept together in one classroom in a school in the ‘Seven Dials’ area of Brighton with one of our teachers. We were billeted out with local people in the area. I think they were paid about ten shillings (50p) a week for each child they took in. Our teacher ‘Mr Bennetto’ had to teach us all, and also had to visit all the houses we were staying in to make sure we were behaving properly, and that we were being looked after.

One day when we went to school, he told us about an air raid that had taken place back home at Croydon airport. Some of my friends mothers worked in factories near the airport and most of them were killed in the raid.

We used to spend quite a lot of time walking along the coast in both directions (there was no T.V. or computer games!). One Sunday morning for a change, we went on the Downs, lost our sense of direction (all the signposts were removed to confuse invaders) and returned two hours late for Sunday lunch!

One day we were on the beach, when a small seaplane landed near to the Palace Pier, two ladies and three or four men got out of it. We didn’t find out where they had come from, but they had obviously escaped from one of the continental countries.

Soon after this France was occupied, and we were moved back to Guilford in Surrey. We were billeted in a little village called Sead, and went to a little village school in Merrow. We used to take a short cut through a wood to school and one morning we were merrily on our way through the wood, not realising that the road we should have been on was closed. It was a good job we were a noisy crew, the local bobby heard us and came charging into the wood to stop us going any further. There was a land mine just ahead (unexploded) near the railway bridge that we usually passed under.

I left school at Guilford and went back to Norwood, by this time we had moved to another part of Norwood known as Goat House Bridge, our previous house and the one next to it having been bombed out. The road we lived in was called Sunnybank and it was in the shape of the letter ‘B’. Air raids were a nightly ritual and very little sleep was had, and it was very difficult to get to work through bomb damaged streets. One night we had a whole cluster of incendiary bombs on the estate and everyone who was able was out with buckets and stirrup pumps.

Then the VI rockets, ‘Doodle Bugs’, started, they were pilot-less flying bombs. When the engine stopped you had to dive for cover. Some friends of ours had their house demolished by one, and their dog was buried for seven hours before being rescued. We took it in our house because they had nowhere to keep it. She was a nervous wreck, but soon recovered. However, when the flying bombs were about, she would dash into our indoor shelter whenever the engines cut out.

After the flying bombs came the V2 rockets. No warning with these, they just dropped out of the sky killing and maiming and demolishing wide areas. We had the second recorded V2 at the side of our estate. It left a gaping great hole, and a vast area of rubble where once stood scores of houses. I was sitting in our front room with my mother and Bess the dog. There was a sudden whoosh, like a powerful vacuum of air, all the lights went out and there was a giant explosion. We were all smothered in glass from the bay window. I had a leaded light wrapped round my head almost trapping me in my armchair. When I got myself free and found my torch, the dog was still crouched on the rug in front of the fire smothered in glass. The fireplace from the room above was hanging through the ceiling, and my mother was screaming at the door, which she couldn’t move because it was off its top hinge and wedged. The front door had been blown upstairs and into the bathroom. For some time after that we lived and slept in the back room downstairs, the only safe room left.

At seventeen and a half I had to go into Croydon for a medical, passed as Al and asked which branch of the services I would like to join. I chose the Fleet Air Arm, and when my calf up papers came I had to report to the East Surrey Regiment in Canterbury. From there I decided to join the Parachute Regiment and went to the Isle of Wight, Park Hurst Barracks, right next door to the prison. Sometimes, after a rough days training we used to wonder who was better off. One night one of the prisoners escaped from the gaol, and we had to turn out to help in the search.

From there we moved up to Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. We had a camp, assault course, rifle range and airstrip in the grounds. I became unfit for continued active service and had the choice of staying on the staff or returning to the East Surrey Regiment. I chose to stay, and was given a job in the Officers Mess. We eventually moved back to the Isle of Wight, and then to Aldershot.
From Aldershot I got a posting to Upper Hafford aerodrome in Oxon, and that is where I met your grandma who was in the Land Army in a neighbouring village.

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