大象传媒

When WW2 was declared on September 3rd 1939 I was a boy aged 9. There was a mass evacuation from London that day. I lived in Chiswick west London. My parents took me to my school Hogarth school where double decker buses were awaiting to take us children out of London to the safety of the countryside.
We set off not knowing our destination. The bus I was on arrived at Tring Berkhampstead about 35 miles from London. From what I can remember it was a large house like a manor size house as quite a few of us children were billeted there. I was not there long perhaps a couple of weeks. I cannot remember the reason why my parents came and took me back home. It might have been panic over from the supposed imminent attack.
While I was away an Anderson shelter had been delivered to our address. I helped my father dig the hole in the garden to fit and erect the galvanized corrugated curved sheets to protect us from the air raids that were to come.
When the shelter was finished there was some more digging to be done. We were told to Dig for Victory the slogan at the time. To help with the forthcoming food shortage due to the war. Directly behind our house was a recreation ground which would be used for allotments. My father was allocated the one nearest to our back garden.
At the outbreak of war my father who was aged 30 volunteered for aircrew in the Royal Air Force had the medical and exams but told me he was not accepted. Men were being called up for active service in age groups it was up to 25. My father then volunteered to be a war reserve policeman as due to the call up there was a shortage of policemen. He became P.C.808 stationed at Askew Road Shepherds Bush.

When the air raids began we would go to the shelter when the air raid siren sounded. We would not come out until the all clear sounded which was the long continuous wail as opposed to the up down warning sound.

As the police force was a 24-hour service my father worked a shift system, which was 6am to 2pm one week the next week 2pm to 10pm then 10pm to 6am rotating. He would come to the shelter with us at night when he was on the early morning shift.
After a heavy air raid with the anti-aircraft guns blazing away most of the night my father left the shelter at about 5am to go indoors to get ready for his early shift. He came straight back to the shelter and warned us not to go in the house as there was a big hole in the stairs. He said it could be an unexploded bomb.

My father鈥檚 brother lived in Ealing so we stayed at his house until the bomb disposal squad could dig and disarm the bomb. It turned out to be an unexploded anti-aircraft gun shell from Big Bertha as we called it, sited in Wormwood Scrubs prison. After the raids and the all clear had sounded I used to search the roads for shrapnel from the exploded anti-aircraft shells some of the pieces still felt warm when you picked them up. I had quite a collection after a while. It eventually went with all the other scrap iron, the iron railing fences and gates that were confiscated for the war effort. I remember the dustcarts had a trailer, kitchen scraps such as potato peelings etc. had to put out separate which the dustmen put in the trailer for the pigs.

Because the majority of children had been evacuated with some of the teachers the schools were closed. Us children still at home only had a few hours tuition a week at a house chosen perhaps at a teacher鈥檚 house that had remained. I think I must have missed at least 9 months schooling before I was evacuated again due to the intensity of the blitz.

Some of my school friends were evacuated to Cornwall in the next batch that went. I went with David Reid his brother and sisters Ted Brown my best mate at the time a few weeks later to Rushden in Northamptonshire. David and I were billeted together with the same family a Mr. Mrs. Jenkins. I remember he worked in a shoe factory that was the dominant industry in that county. While I was there he made me a pair of shoes.

This was one of the unhappiest times of my childhood I was very homesick crying myself to sleep most nights. My foster parents were quite concerned and wrote to my parents telling them of my plight. My father visited and I thought he had come down to take me back home, but to my disappointment he explained that the air raids were still happening most nights and was not safe yet to return. To give me something to look forward to he promised to send my bicycle by train. A week later I picked it up from the station.

Sometime later David and I were reallocated to different foster homes as I think the Jenkins circumstances changed so they could not look after us. I was billeted with Mr.Mrs.Brookes who had a son Colin about my age and a daughter about 18 as she volunteered for the women鈥檚 A.T.S.and left home for her basic training. Mr. Brookes was in the Home guard.

I cannot remember how much longer I stayed as an evacuee in Rushden but I know I returned home to Chiswick before the war ended.I must have been about 13 years old I was still at school at Stavely Road Secondary.I remember Ted Brown and I had to walk through Chiswick Park grounds. We used to time it that if the air raid siren went off before we arrived we would stay in the park untill the all clear sounded.If we were in school we had to go down the shelter.
The air raids were not so frequent thats why I suppose we returned home when we did. I left school at 14 which was 1944. Thats when the flying bombs (Doodlebugs) as we called them started.When you heard one approaching as long as the sound of the engine kept going you knew you were safe but when the engine cut out and stopped it was coming down some where.I remember one morning at work my first job was to clean up the swarf and metal waste from under the machines and put them in the waste bin in the yard.I heard a flying bomb quite near the engine suddenly stopped hearing a rushing sound I threw myself to the floor next to the bin, with the explosion I looked up and saw a blast ripple shoot skywards.I ran to the entrance of the yard to the road which was the Bath road Bedford Park Chiswick looking down towards Turnham Green the flying bomb had impacted in the middle of the road outside the Chiswick Technical College.The time must have been just after 8am luckily before school time.I cannot remember the details but I suppose it was recorded.I shall have to look it up some time.

It was September 8th 1944 my mother's birthday I had taken her to the cinema, the Dominion in Acton for a treat.As we were
leaving after the afternoon performance
there was a big explosion that shook the
exit doors as we left.Once outside we looked around but could not see any signs
of where the explosion took place.When we returned home to Chiswick several miles away,we were told that Stavely Road had been
hit.It turned out to be the first V rocket to hit London.Winston Churchill and some of his war ministers came to the scene that very afternoon to inspect the damage.It had landed in
the road but demolished some houses which were semi-detached if I remember correctly.

As VE day approached Ted Brown and I visited the local bomb sites collecting
wood to build a large bonfire on a site to celebrate.My father made a large wooden V drilled holes at intervals to insert fairy lights.He fixed it outside our upstairs frontroom window switching it on to celebrate the end of the war in Europe.

I cannot remember the exact time a few years later I had bought a tandem bicycle.
Ted Brown and myself decided to cycle to Rushden one weekend and visit our foster
parents.We packed a tent and a couple of blankets.I cannot remember wether we did find our respective foster parents.What I do remember was the sleepless uncomfortable night we spent on some waste ground where we pitched the tent.The fifty mile cycle back to London is a blank in my memory.

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