大象传媒

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October 17th 1940, about 9 - 10 pm - nine days after my tenth birthday, we lived in a cul de sac in Isleworth. The bomb fell and destroyed six houses and created a large crater. My father, mother, older and younger brother were in the Andersen shelter and the blast blew the house on top of the Andersen shelter which was squashed underneath.
It was a few hours before the rescuers got to the site because it was a busy night with extensive bombing in the area.
We were buried and my legs were crushed by rubble from the shelter. My mother lay across my pelvis. When they got to us we were rather wet because a water mains had broken.
By daylight they got all of us out - I was the last and my mother was dead. I was taken to West Middlesex Hospital. The doctor told the nurse off because the bed was slightly dirty - I was covered in mud. He had a look at my legs, asked me to try and put them on the ground, but they were badly twisted, black and blue and swollen. I started to cry. Standing at the bottom of the bed he told someone in a loud voice that I might have to wear calipers for the rest of my life.
I was visited by the top brass of the police, ARP and fire service, who recommended me for an award for bravery.
After a few weeks, I came out of hospital wearing a man's coat, pyjamas and shoes that were far too big and then went to the Red Cross and was fitted out with children's clothes.
The family was separated and I was sent to live with a family in Witton near Hounslow. My father and brothers went to live elsewhere.
Another bomb fell in Witton and damaged the house I was living in and the water flooded the air raid shelter. I was back to the Red Cross again where I was fitted out with an American outfit - I was very proud of the pullover.
I went down to Gloucester to live with my mother's family in the Forest of Dean - my elder brother and father stayed in London, and my 3 year old brother went to another relative in the Forest of Dean. I was there for 2 months and the evacuee lady came and took me away to the family from hell in the same village. I was in a state with nightmares, wetting the bed and with damaged legs, so that I fell down sometimes.
I visited my young brother and one day they said he had been adopted and was no longer my brother so I couldn't visit him.
With the family from hell, I slept on the floor with an army overcoat. At 12 I was working most of the day picking acorns, digging potatoes, stealing coal,and doing household chores and running errands. The man drank two quarts of cider a day after a day in the mines - I ran away eventually and ended up in Birmingham and on VE day I came to London.

In 2001 I went to Richmond town hall to see the archives of newspapers of the time. Looking through the micro-reader, I found I was a hero and in the paper it said that my mother was in the last few days of her pregnancy. That is one of the strangest things because as I read the micro-reader, I could hear my father shouting out 'it's alive, it's alive' when we were all buried.

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