大象传媒

As a boy I lived at 239 Gipsy Road Welling bordering Bexleyheath North West Kent

My earliest memory is that of a Sunday morning in September 1939 at the age of 4, when the family were at Bostal Heath at the junction of Brampton Road and Longleigh Lane watching the tethered Barrage Balloon, when all of a sudden the first air raid warning Siren sounded, it was loud and frightening, we rushed home as quick as possible, I was on my blue three wheeler bike. When we arrived home Dad placed a mattress against the dinning room windows as the sound of an aircraft could be heard, it was a false alarm as the plane was one of ours.

During the war period I can remember watching with my sister the German bombers being caught in the search lights and of seeing 'dog fights' in the sky between our fighter aircraft and the Germans. Night after night the German bombers came over, their targets being the Woolwich Arsenal and the docks, we were on their bomb run. We had a mongrel bitch dog called Nan, she was mainly black with bits of white on her face, Dad brought her home from work as she was being ill-treated. Before the air raid siren sounded she would bark and warn us of the oncoming raid. We would hear the Ack-Ack guns opening up, first at Danson Park to the south then Shooters Hill to the West and lastly Bostal Woods to the north, all within a few miles of each other. After the raid we go out looking for pieces of shrapnel from the shells, incendiary bomb fins, material from the parachute of land mines and the silver / black foil strips used to disrupt the Radar. In our part of the road alone we had a 500 LB bomb explode on the houses opposite destroying 2 pairs of semi detached houses, an oil bomb dropped just a few houses away and many incendiary bombs. At the top of the road fell a parachute mine, 2 flying bombs V1's or Doodlebugs as they were called and a V2 rocket, there were quite a few lives lost.

When the bomb dropped opposite our house the main blast passed between our house and that of the Mr and Mrs Day next doors which saved our house, the front step was forced under the hallway, most of the windows were broken and roof tiles dislodged. We had to move out so that the bomb damage could be repaired and went to live in a summer type house in a ladies garden at Hullbridge, on the river Wharf in Essex. It was here that my sister and I were machined gunned by a stray German fighter plane as we walked to school. After a few weeks when the repairs had been completed we returned to our house in Welling.

Because of the air raids, which were continuous, my sister and I were evacuated in mid 1944 leaving Bexleyheath station by train for Huddersfield in Yorkshire. I can remember arriving and all of us sitting at long tables eating bread and jam in a hall, then being picked out for billeting, we were at first billeted together but as the place was dirty my sister complained and we were rebilleted but in different homes at Lockwood in Huddersfield. My sister went to Mr and Mrs Ellis who had a daughter called Winnie of a similar age which was a good home and I went to a Mr and Mrs Flooks who had about 2 sons, Mrs Flooks only wanted the evacuation money and called me a lair when I told her about the air raids at home. I was taken by her son to see a bomb crater in a field near David Browns factory. Nearby was a park called Castle Hill which had the Victoria Tower.

I was not wanted and I disliked the family so I kept writing home 'I want to come home. I want to come home' . After 6 weeks my mother came to collect me and as we arrived in London the Flying bombs had just started. My sister stayed for a few months before returning. She has kept in touch with the daughter Winnie ever since. During the war and for sometime after fruit was scarce and when word got round that our local Greengrocers in Wrotham Road had oranges in all the mum's would queue up outside the shop waiting for it to open. To encourage recycling, jam jars and beer and lemonade bottles where refundable. Large jam jars fetched a penny and the small ones a half penny, the bottles fetched between two and four pence. Sweets were rationed and were hard to find.

When the war ended in Europe, our part of the road, like many others, held a V .E Day ( Victory over Europe) celebration party. The road was closed off for the day and tables and chairs were put in the middle of the road for the children, the mums made cakes and sandwiches from what ever they could get hold of. Bunting was tied around the lamp posts, anyone who had a flag hung it out and music was played from a gramophone.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.