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After a while people felt that nothing serious was happening and we children started to drift back to our home in the Croydon area (after begging our parents). The next serious incident was some years later, in 1944, and it made me realize how much responsibility the staff at our school had to take. I was about to take my G.C..S.E.’s and it was the time of the ‘doodlebugs’. Because we all had various distances to travel to the school (only our year was attending school because of the bombing), both that the frequency of the bombs meant that we all arrived at the school at different times and so my routine was as follows:-

I would leave my house just after a ‘doodlebug’ had gone over. I then cycled to the nearest Air Raid Shelter and waited while the next ‘bug’ went over or exploded. Then off on my bike again to the next shelter and so on. When we arrived at school we were given a few minutes to compose ourselves and then the exact time was recorded on the blackboard. Each girl was treated separately in this and was told quietly when their ‘time was up’!

After this we had to stay in the school until the ‘All clear’ sounded. At this stage we were the responsibility of the staff and they couldn’t possibly allow us to go home while bombs were dropping. This was when we saw our staff in a different light. They had all brought various games to the school, mainly board games, but had altered them to make them light-hearted and I well remember the laughter that echoed in the corridors that had been turned into a makeshift air-raid shelter.

The ‘All clear’ would sound at about 7.00 0 7.30pm and then we could light our bicycle lamps and travel home. For the record I did pass my exams but didn’t have a very high mark!

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