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As winter drew on and the dark hours lengthened, the air raids lasted longer and the eagerly awaited 鈥淎ll Clear鈥� took longer to come. One lasting memory during my night duty turns was a narrow escape by London Bridge Signal box.

I took a call from the signalman, who said 鈥淚 have something hanging over the end of my box, will let you know what it is.鈥� The next message came from the control point, saying that the station had been evacuated the Underground stopped running, because the 鈥渟omething鈥� was the parachute of a large land mine, which was caught on the gable end, leaving the mine swinging clear of the ground. Being a mine, it was a Royal Navy job!

The Navy duly arrived, defused it and cut it down; had it gone off, the whole great railway concentration of London Bridge, Charing Cross and Cannon Street would have been out of service for a considerable time.

There was another dreadful night near Christmas, when a firebomb attack on Fleet Street created a massive cloud of burnt paper. As we waited for our train home, this cloud was drifting in the calm morning air, heading southwest high in the sky.

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