大象传媒

On the day war broke out, 3rd September, 1939, my father, traumatised by his experiences in the trenches in WW1 and convinced that bombs would fall on London immediately, packed me , my mother and the pet wire-haired terrier named Java into the car and drove to Sidmouth, Devon. I celebrated my 17th birthday on the 4th!

After some weeks I returned, with my dog, to stay with friends in Harrow,in order to complte my secretarial course at kensington College, and begin working on my first job in the City of London in November 1939. My pet, like many animals, was absolutely terrified of fireworks and any other sort of bang, became unwell and had to be put to sleep, as were many hundreds, maybe thousands of domestic pets at that time.

Meanwhile, in 1940, the period later known as the "phony war", my parents had returned to our home in Kensal Rise, but in September, 1940 the blitz began, and I experienced the trials of commuting to the City via the Broad Street railway line-being turned out half way, picking your way over the mass of firehoses as tired firefighters damped down the overnight fires, clambering onto the backs of lorries to reach the city, etc.-and then during the daylight alerts, carrying one's typewriter, heavy in those days, down to the basement to continue working. Later on, wardens were posted on the roofs of buildings to blow whistles if danger was imminent, allowing people to take cover away from windows for short periods, thus minimising the amount of stoppage of work.
One stark memory is of standing on the Kensal Rise platform and seeing a train pass slowly through, absolutely crowded with the exhausted survivors of Dunkirk.

At home, the drawing room as it was called, was turned into a bomb shelter by the use of wooden shutters, dry brick wall, and steel poles to support the ceiling, as my mother's health would have prevented her from spending time in an outside Anderson shelter.

In the middle of September the family were invited to have a rest in Oxford - friends, relatives, and even strangers rallied round to offer accommodation to people being bombed - and six weeks later I began working for the Bishop of Dorchester, changing to the War Agricultural Executive Committee in April 1942.

A memory of firewatching duty at the WAEC offices was the legacy, every time, of a number of fleas, traced eventually to my colleagues who had visited farms, using the same blankets!

Later on that year, wishing to return to London but being in a "reserved occupation", I had to apply to the Ministry of Labour and by December 1942 was posted to the Legal Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries in London, housed at that time in Bickenhall Mansions in Baker Street.

After some time I was moved to Whitehall to work for the Minister himself. I had enrolled as an ARP Warden in Westminster, and with a friend, did duty in Control Room B in the Horse Guards Arch - this after scarcely a few hours' training! It was quite a common occurrence to be invited by the soldiers to visit the stables to see the horse with the green tail, an invitation we had to refuse reluctantly as we were on duty!!!

D Day in 1944 found me in hospital,and afterwards I went back to Oxford to recuperate. On return to work in Whitehall it meant commuting from Oxford - 6.40am bus, 7.10am train, stopping at every station to Reading, no heating, 6.05pm return, sitting outside Oxford station at night and seeing the last bus leave so I had to walk 4 miles, all this six days a week, and sometimes seven if warden duty fell on a Sunday - monthly season ticket (to the best of my memory) 拢4.15s.! Of course, summer weekends were a nightmare with the holiday crowds queueing outside to even get inside Paddington Station.

In January 1945 my father, William Strike, was blown over by the blast from a V rocket whilst standing in Paddington Station. He subsequently developed pneumonia and by the beginning of February was very ill. At that time pencillin was only available to H.M. Forces, but my father was admitted to the Military Ward of the Radcliffe Hospital under the care of Lady Florey, the wife of one of the discoverers of the drug, and made a wonderful recovery. I was led to believe at the time that my father was the first civilian to receive pencillin and was mentioned in 'The Lancet'.

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