大象传媒

That memorable evening in October 1944 I was walking home alone from the Odeon cinema next to Norwood Junction station. I was a blitz-hardened, 13 years-old Londoner, who, in 1940 had tolerated only two unhappy months of evacuation before persuading my hesitant parents to take me home to Portland Road; a home which was subsequently severely damaged on two occasions-- once in the first London blitz by bombing and again by a V1 buzz bomb, one of hundreds which glided to earth in South London's 'doodlebug alley'.
As I turned into Portland Road my thoughts were on the film and how I would recount it to Guv Stuart and Les Rodbourn - two friends who that evening were attending lectures at the School of Building, South Norwood Hill.
Suddenly, a vivid pencil of light streaked earthwards through the inky sky over the rooftops. It reminded me of a very fast tracer shell. Hardly had this impression registered on my senses when the suburban landscape erupted in a confusion of light, smoke and noise. Glass from shop fronts and houses pinged past my face; debris rained down on all sides. Not realizing I had seen the final few hundred feet of a V2 trajectory, the devastation was inexplicable and uncanny. My blitz-hardened nerves cracked and I took to my heels. Stumbling over rubble I kept running until breathless, dusty and bloodstained I was pulled through my front doorway a half-mile along Portland Road by my anxious mother.
Meanwhile, my friends working at their desks had heard an explosion and disregarded it. It was only later when Les Rodbourn found his home in Sunny Bank Had almost completely disappeared into a huge crater that he knew he had heard one of the first V2 rocket missiles in London.
Although far from funny at the time one can look back at a sequel to the V2 era with Goon-like humour. The authorities attempted to throw a security blanket over the Sunny Bank and other V2 incidents by insisting these were exploding gas mains. The War Damage Commission refused to acknowledge the acres of devastation as an act of war but referred all applicants to the Gas Board who paid the appropriate compensation without demur.
Perhaps it WAS a gas main I saw hurtling through space!

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