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More sirens, less work.

The beginning of the war when they started to bomb us. What was I, 17,18? I was working in London, and got moved down to the country. It was five miles away from Hampton Court. I worked for the marketing board. Because London was beginning to be bombed, they moved us down there. But the funny part was, we all moved down there and we used to get the London air raid warnings. Then we had to go down to the shelters. Then they did the ones in Surrey, and we would have to go back again. So I should say we did about an hours work a week, what with all this running from siren to siren.

Close shave with a bomb

But we had to leave there when the sirens went. To get to Tooting where I was living at the time, we had to get a train to Wimbledon and get a train across the bridge and get another one there. So if we left at 5 o’clock we had to wait until 6 for the train. SO we used get the files all locked up, and at 5 minutes to, we would run across, because we could run in those days, run across the fields. Well this particular day, we were running across the fields and our boss caught us and brought us back. Good thing she did, because when we got to Wimbledon there was a terrible fuss. We realized a German bomb had come down and caught the train, the front of the train, and everyone was killed. There were only 4 of them left. There were over 200 people on the train, and only the 4 of left. They were all killed. The ones that weren’t killed were dead in a few weeks from the injuries. It was only us that survived.
War-time driving

I got a bit fed up with that. I got fed up with running down to two shelters and doing nothing. I like to pass the time away quickly and you’ll do that if you’re working, but not if you’re waiting for air raid. So I decided to drive. I enjoyed it most of all because it meant on Sunday mornings I could take my father to work He had to walk to work on Sundays and it was 8 miles. No trams on Sundays. I never missed a Sunday taking him to work.
I drove the Ambulance. I liked driving at night. Because there were no lights, your headlights on the car were covered with cardboard and only a pin prick for the light to go through. That was the only light we had due to black outs. It was scary driving during the bombs. The amount of times I would turn the other way. They would say ‘You’re driving away from the hospital’ and I would say ‘Yes but I’m driving away from the bombs too!’
I had to pick several up with the ambulance. I didn’t find it difficult. I had to do many rescues. Many times I had a call to go one place and it would be the wrong place. I would say ‘Is anyone hurt’ and they would say ‘Yes in that road’ and I would just get in and go. I didn’t need to wait to be told. I would take them around to the hospital and if it was the wrong hospital I would just dump them and go. I was a bit of a renegade really. I would do the job. My job was to pick up people that were hurt and take them to hospital. Not to argue whether it was the right hospital.
During the air raid sirens we had to stay in the ambulance. I saw bombs coming out of the sky. I would see the planes coming and I would turn around and go the other way. It was frightening but I got used to it.

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