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This story has been added to the website by Eleanor Fell, on behalf of Harry Smith, who has given his permission for his wartime memory to be added to the site and he understands the terms and conditions of the website.

One day I’ll never forget during the war is the day that the local sweet shop was struck by a nearby bomb. It was sometime in 1944 and I was about fourteen at the time. My local sweet shop was called Doris’s and it was in a garage in Wellham Road, in Tooting, London. One day a doodlebug landed nearby and Doris’s was hit. During the war sweets were severely rationed, but on that particularly day there was Dolly bars, Black jacks, Cadburys chocolates, Sherbet dabs scattered everywhere — we certainly didn’t lack for sweets that day. Children were swarming from everywhere to grab what they could from the remains of the sweet shop.

The sad thing is that even though there was a war on, people still stole what they could and most of the takings from the sweet shop got taken as well — as there was money scattered everywhere as well as sweets.

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