大象传媒

I promised your researchers at the Stourhead, Wilts, display of both wars鈥� memorabilia, some months ago, that I would pass on a rather special story from my book on the wartime fire-fighters, Are you 17?, ISBN 0 9517757 1 5.
It was told to me by Jeff Robson, a women鈥檚 hairdresser, who volunteered and joined the Auxiliary Fire Service in answer to the 1938 appeal. When the blitz on London began he was in charge of an AFS sub-station in Caversham, Reading, Berks.
Everyone was waiting with almost frantic expectation and wanting to go and help when the red glow of the fires filled the sky in the east over London. When the plea for help came Jeff, like many others, took his crew and pump to the city.
He gave me a graphic account (from his own notes he had written soon after) of the dash: Home Guards with rifles and fixed bayonets barring the way, fearing invasion, the shock of the first anti-aircraft guns firing and the shrapnel crashing down - it is all written down for posterity in my book, the only one I know which tells their story from 1938 to 1945.
There isn鈥檛 room to repeat here, except to record the terrible fires and bombings as they cross through the centre of London heading for the docks. Jeff鈥檚 crew took over from exhausted Londoners: 鈥淭he branches were throwing out powerful jets of water, a solid stream for 150 yards. Talk about David and Goliath. Containers of incendiaries were dropping out of the sky, opening and spilling out 36 foot-long bombs, which in turn were sending out glittering showers of white splinters of magnesium鈥︹��
It clearly was a night beyond anyone鈥檚 imagination. 鈥淭he flames鈥�, he told me, 鈥渨ere a beacon of immense proportions to any and every enemy plane鈥︹��
Then he told me the story I promised to put on the 大象传媒 history web site.
鈥淪uddenly along the street, in the middle of the maelstrom, a middle-aged woman - a real East-Ender, the people London was to learn to be proud of - carrying a large wash-stand jug. Beside her was a little kiddie, she can鈥檛 have been more than four or five, clutching a handful of tin mugs.
鈥淪he came up to us firemen and said 鈥榃ould you chaps like some tea?鈥� Yes please, we all replied, suddenly we realised how dry were our throats in the gasping heat and smoke.
鈥淧utting the jug down amid the debris, she took the cups from the child and wiped them in her apron, oblivious to the hell around, and then poured the tea. Never did tea taste better鈥�
鈥淏ut why are you out with your child in the middle of a blitz? She shrugged her shoulders - 鈥業 thought the men would like a drink. They must be thirsty with all that heat.鈥�
鈥淪he took the cups and, with the child at her side, set off towards the dock gates to offer her tea to any man she saw.鈥�
When Jeff got back home he told me he said to his wife, 鈥淲here the hell did she get the water and heat the kettle?鈥�
End

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