大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War web site by Karen Elmes at the Building Exploratory on behalf of Maude Mason and has been added to the site with her permission. She fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Maude went shopping one day and was halfway down the street when she had to run for a shelter to escape from a doodlebug. It was when the noise stopped that you knew you were for it.

One night Maude and her son had a narrow escape from a doodlebug:

鈥淲hen my son was a baby we copped it on Presburg Street. I got all the baby鈥檚 clothes packed, a bottle of milk ready on the copper outside for the baby. We had the waterworks near where we lived and that鈥檚 what they were trying for. So this night, it鈥檚 pouring down with rain 鈥� June! And they was over, as we got to the shelter I laid him in the entrance. Some people had beds made up in there, but me, as I got down, that鈥檚 where we laid, thank God for that. But a doodlebug dropped, it went over the top of me and the baby, but it blew the back of the shelter out.鈥�

They laid buried in the sand for the best part of the night. If they had been in the shelter they would have been killed. When they were dug out she was stark naked from the force of the bomb and didn鈥檛 realise. She just wanted to get the bottle of milk from the copper. The warden told her, 鈥淵ou ain鈥檛 got a copper, let alone a bottle of milk.鈥�

Maude wouldn鈥檛 go into the large shelters because she didn鈥檛 want to get killed in the panic if anything went wrong. She remembers that most people in Presburg Street took shelter in the large shelter at the Clapton Dog Stadium.

The bomb had completely destroyed Maude鈥檚 home. She went to stay at a rest centre in a school on Daubeney Road, where they had to sleep on the floor. There were piles of clothes inside that people could help themselves to, it did not matter if the clothes were too big or too long, people were grateful for what they could get. Maude was able to pick up an old coat which was too big for her.

Maude went back to the remains of her house to see what could be salvaged from the rubble. Maude said she had nice stuff, a fur rug and a rug with a leopard鈥檚 head. They could have been salvaged, but there was no floor to put them on.

After her home was destroyed, Maude鈥檚 mother-in-law came down from Billericay and took baby while Maude tried to get another house. She said that her husband was in the army and needed somewhere to come home to. Maude went to the re-housing office in Mare Street where she was told there were no houses for her. Listening to people when filling in forms, she found out that some women would borrow children to take to with them to the office to help their case. If you had one child you weren鈥檛 considered to be a priority for a new home. Maude was especially annoyed about this as it meant that she would not be re-housed in one of the new pre-fab houses which had been put up on her street. Maude kept going down to the office and finally lost her temper and slung the form at an official. They were going to call the police so she said to call them and she would live in the police cells. She found out that if you didn鈥檛 stick up for yourself you got nowhere. Some of the houses she looked at were really bad: 鈥淵ou wouldn鈥檛 let a bleeding cat live in them.鈥�

She eventually found a home in Hollow Street, Stoke Newington. She was given tokens, something like stamps, to buy new furniture and still has a sideboard from that time. She claimed compensation for a piano for her husband to replace the one lost in bombing. It was classed as a luxury item but she still managed to get the claim.

Building a home from scratch was hard. The Salvation Army were always there when bombs dropped, and you could have any of the goods they had brought with them. Two champagne bottles from her wedding survived the war and she still has them today.

This story was recorded by the Building Exploratory as part of a World War Two reminiscence project called Memory Blitz. To find out more please go to ^{About links}

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