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The War Years 1939-1945.

Bearing in mind there was television only in a very few homes and only limited news concerning the rest of the world, the build up to the war went unnoticed by us as children. Once war was declared, the fear of the adults who had lived through the 1914-1918 war became apparent. With my Father at sea, my Mother and Grandmother quickly decided that the outskirts of London was not the place to be, so they decided to go to my Grandmother's eldest sister in Swansea. We had actually got as far as Cheltenham when war was declared. Great aunt Maggie lived in a small terraced house with an attic, an outside toilet and gas lighting. Her other sister's daughter also arrived from London with her children. We children enjoyed the lovely beaches, but as far as the grownups were concerned, it was not a good idea. Accordingly, as all seemed quiet, we returned home to Ilford after one month. I am not sure whether it was just before war was declared or after we returned, but I remember sensing the fear of the grownups when we were all called to the school to be fitted with gas masks. They had witnessed the return of soldiers from the First World War suffering from the effects of mustard gas and with planes capable of reaching Britain, the fear was very real.

Things remained quiet as far as the civilian population was concerned until the summer of 1940 when the air raids began. All families in the most vulnerable areas had some protection in the form of an air raid shelter, although houses with basements used those. There were Anderson shelters and we had one of those. A large pit was dug in the garden, well away from the house and the shelter, a curved structure made of corrugated iron was put in. A door at ground level opened onto steps leading down to the bottom. We had two wooden bunks at the bottom and two canvas bunks above that and a hurricane lamp for light. When the winter came it was very cold and we dressed in coats and leggings and warm hats to go to bed. There were anti-aircraft guns in the nearby park and with the tremendous noise they made and the sound of bombs dropping, we had little sleep. With the sound of the all clear we would crawl out to see how much damage had been done. We were fortunate. Our house did not receive a direct hit, but the ceilings came down and the windows were blown in several times. I recall one evening when an air raid began almost as soon as the siren sounded. It was too bad to run down the garden so we huddled under the dining room table. A knock came on the front door and my Mother was too frightened to answer it at first. It was my Father. He was serving on the Trinity House lightship South Goodwin which was stationed roughly between Dover and Calais. The Germans were bombing and shelling Dover non stop and the ship was sunk. It was so dangerous that the crew had been brought ashore during daylight hours, but a shell hit the seamen鈥檚 hostel where they were staying. My Father escaped injury and returned home until the ship was replaced.

Our school was closed during this time and teachers used to come to someone鈥檚 home and a group of children would gather there for perhaps a morning鈥檚 lessons. When the night raids stopped, school reopened and then the day raids began. The long corridor of our school was lined with sand bags and when an air raid began we would all sit on the floor listening to the guns and the whistle of bombs and the drone of planes. A lady with a piano accordion came sometimes and she would encourage us to sing loudly to drown out the noise. We had a twenty minute walk to school, I recall sheltering in a house porch with my brother John and watching a plane very low, spraying the road with bullets. Our headmaster often asked how my Father was, which we couldn鈥檛 understand as most of the fathers were away, but it wasn鈥檛 until several years later that we realised the extreme danger those men faced.

Shopping for food was another adventure. We all had ration books and we had to register with a shop and we could not buy rationed food anywhere else. So Mother registered with Sainsbury鈥檚 and a butcher nearby. They were quite a distance from home, but there was a bus service, but that was often non existent due to the bombing. No supermarket service then, Mother would put us in different queues to cut down the waiting time and we were expected to know exactly what to ask for.

Then came Grammar School. Somehow some of us had learnt enough to pass an exam. This school was much nearer to home and later my brother John joined me there, Soon after I joined the school, there was what became known as a hit and run raid. The planes carried bombs and bullets. I had just dressed ready for school when I heard the plane coming. I ran to the next bedroom and grabbed my younger brother Jeffrey from his bed. Bullets hit the window and the glass blew over us. A bomb dropped further up the road and a neighbour was killed. We were all badly shaken and I didn't get to school that morning. I went in the afternoon and got quite a welcome from the others in my form.

As the tide turned and the Germans began to lose the war, the air raids became less. But Hitler had two more tricks up his sleeve. The first was the doodlebugs. They were pilotless planes with a powerful warhead and when the fuel ran out they would dive to earth. One of these hit our school, destroying the art room and the science laboratories and the air raid shelters. No one was hurt as the school had just broken up for the summer holidays. These doodlebugs went on for some time until the Allied armies over ran the launch sites. Then came the rockets. Unlike the doodlebugs, these were silent. These too went on for some months until their launch sites were destroyed. In 1945 came peace and the luxury of going anywhere with out fear and going to bed knowing there would be no air raids.

This was written as part of a Grandparents Book, our life story written for our grandchildren.

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