大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Lincolnshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Mrs Margaret Phillips and has been entered with her permission. Mrs Phillips fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I began the war years working as a nurse in charge of first aid at Rustons in Lincoln. There were three thousand men and one thousand women working there at the time.

In 1944 I arrived in London. I remember seeing St. Paul鈥檚 dome standing on its own. The rest of the area was completely flattened.

When the rockets started coming over I remember that the Woolworth鈥檚 in Newcross was totally destroyed and there was a huge crater left. In cases like this, the authorities sealed off the crater and left it for six months. This was to give people time to return to their areas. If they hadn鈥檛 turned up after six months they were officially declared dead. We were living in a bombed place at the time. The top of the building had been destroyed and was unfit to live in. I remember the snow blowing in through the cracks in the ceiling and where the windows should have been. We just had sheets where the glass would have been. In the New Year a flat became empty. After six months no-one had come back to it and so we were able to move in to it.

I used to cycle around London on my bicycle since I was a District Nurse and had to go out to see people. I would cycle around in blackouts with the tramlines below and not being able to see where I was going. It was quite tricky! Patients who had just had operations would be moved out of hospital to make room for casualties from the bombing raids.

One day I was riding my bike out toward Rotherhithe and I came to a cross roads. There was a greengrocers on the corner and outside there was a long queue. If you saw a queue you would always go to see what people were queuing for. In this case the greengrocer had some cherries and I hadn鈥檛 seen any of those since before the war so I joined the back of the queue. Next thing we knew was that a doodlebug came over and everyone ran under a nearby bridge to take cover. It landed several streets away and as soon as it had, everyone went back to queue again, in exactly the same order as before! I managed to get 16 cherries that day.

In London we were allowed a portion of sponge cake a week as a special concession. This was because of the particular hardship suffered by Londoners during the bombing, etc. You could have it with some jam in the middle or with some red lines on the top. We called those tramlines.

I remember one incident when some men had come down from the north to help clear areas up. A doodlebug came over and we all went to hide behind part of a wall. Once it had landed I got up to go about my business and turned round and saw three men鈥檚 faces peering around the wall. I told them it was safe to come out. They had never experienced anything like this before. I always thought the doodlebugs were the worst of all since they would come over with flame coming out of them then the flame would cut out and the doodlebug would break into three. Then there was no noise until it landed but you never knew where it would go.

Every spring when blossom falls, it reminds me of a time when I was pushing my bike up a hill one early morning. I saw the blossom lying in the gutter and it was shining and so I took a closer look. It was covered in splintered glass from blown out windows. I will never forget that sight. Such prettiness from such devastation.

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