大象传媒

FRIDAY 16TH JUNE 1944 was a day just like any other; it was bright and warm and I was either on holiday from school or it was after school. It was difficult to imagine that in what today would be termed only a stone's throw away from where we lived in Surrey, a war was
ging and people were being killed. To me as a child of eight the war was something that provided us with different games to play - games about soldiers and prisoners and Germans. Everybody knew how to draw a swastika but not what it was or what it mea
. The things that little boys collected now included shrapnel and sometimes even spent cartridge cases. We joined the grown ups in counting the bombers going out and again coming back and whilst we joined in the elation when the numbers tallied we didn'
fully appreciate the implications when they didn't!.

So, on this day just like any other day I was probably bored and my mother looked round for something for me to do. Like most of the other houses at our end of the street we had a brick built air raid shelter in the back garden, not too far away from t
back door. We didn't actually use ours because a neighbour across the road had a larger, semi underground shelter so when the siren sounded we would go across to their shelter. Because of this our shelter had become just a place to store things so we c
ldn't use it if we wanted to; we were now to put this right - as my mother said "we never know when we might need it"

I can remember we worked very hard and cleared the shelter out completely. My father had acquired some old car bench seats from somewhere and we ranged these across the back so there would be somewhere to sit

It must have been just before 9:30 PM when the siren sounded. The routine was mechanical, get up, dressing gown or a coat and slippers and shoes and off to the shelter. Our house was end of terrace and we would go downstairs out the back door around the
ide of the house and across the road to our neighbour's shelter. On this occasion, as we went out of the back door my mother said "let's use our shelter, we've cleared it out and it might only be a short raid"

There were five of us; my mother carrying my baby sister of just four months wrapped in a shawl; my father shepherding all of us; my brother and myself. My brother caused a flap by going back into the house to find the cat but my father got him back in
the shelter. As we ranged ourselves across the seats that were across the back of our now tidy shelter we could hear the drone of what turned out to be a V2 or doodlebug. I can see my father now standing in the doorway of the shelter hands against th
wall on either side to balance himself and bending his knees as he sank down to maintain his view of the bomb that he could clearly see coming straight for us. He turned and leaped across the shelter and threw himself across us.

I can remember banging my head against the wall, probably the result of my father trying to shield us from the blast, but that was all. The noise must have been tremendous but I didn't hear a thing. The incredible thing was we were alright. My father had
a cut on his knee (but not in his trousers!) and I had banged my head, but that was all.

When we collected ourselves we came out of the shelter and round the side of what was left of the house, into the road. The bomb had landed in the middle of the road. Apparently it had been hit by ack ack fire which had tipped it up so that it hadn't fallen to the ground but had literally dived in creating a massive crater. On both sides of the road was utter devastation; houses closest to the point of impact were just reduced to piles of rubble whilst for those further away it was as if some giant hand had torn the fronts off them and then attempted to gouge out what was inside. Contents of bedrooms were being spewed out into the street as the unsupported floors gradually caved in. Fires had started from fractured gas mains and the cries of trapped people could be heard some seriously trapped under piles of masonry, others safe but unable to get out from under the stairs - the under stairs cupboard having become an all too popular "shelter". There was an all pervading smell in the air which remained as one of my most vivid memories - I don't know what it was but I think it may have been stale air that was released when the buildings were destroyed. The houses were fronted by dwarf walls many of which had survived but had been blown over; for some reaso
I found this amusing.

By now anxious friends and relatives had started to arrive and also the emergency services. We were whisked away. Of our friends and neighbours 10 were killed and over 40 injured - it was not a day just like any other after all.

About a week later, week I watched a funeral in Worcester Park that included a number of little white coffins - they were my friends.

I still wonder, how far across the road we would have got if we hadn't cleared out our shelter.......
David Roberts August 1999 55 years later

(Now aged 67)

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