大象传媒

It was during the year of 1940 when I returned home to Battersea, after being evacuated for almost a year to the village of Wargrave in Berkshire. I was ten years old and had come back at the start of the summer school holidays. There hadn鈥檛 been many air-raids over London so my mum thought it safe for me to stay and not return. However later on when further raids did occur mum changed her mind and decided to write to Mrs Critcher the woman I had been billeted with to ask if she could take me back, later on Mrs Critcher replied to the letter to say she had taken on another evacuee. I was quite pleased about this when I was told, the thought of having all my family killed during an air-raid whilst I was away and myself being the only one left frightened me far more that the prospect of being bombed.
It was now early in September and I remember quite clearly the very first day of the blitz. I was out playing with a friend one late Saturday afternoon when I looked up to the sky and saw what seemed to be hundreds of German planes flying so high up that they looked very small, as they flew overhead they were reflected in the early evening sun which appeared to make them glisten. Later that night the air-raid siren went and this was the beginning of the blitz and the first time I had ever heard a whistling bomb, which was quite scary, I鈥檓 not sure if that was the correct name for them, perhaps they were called this because of the sound they made when dropped from the planes.
From then on the air-raids continued, sometimes during the day, but mostly at night when my family and I took shelter in the cellar of our house. Several weeks later one afternoon in October I was laying on the bed next to my mum, she seemed to like her afternoon naps, and being unable to sleep I became very fidgety, so I decided to go and play with my friend Pat who lived in the upstairs flat of the house opposite. I hadn鈥檛 been there for very long when the air-raid siren went at about four forty-five. We were playing in my friend鈥檚 living room when I happened to look across at her mum鈥檚 face and noticed that she looked very frightened, almost hysterical, she was trying to close herself into a tall cupboard, pulling the door behind her. She shouted out to us to get down on the floor and to lay flat which we did, suddenly the room seemed to darken, it was though a shadow had crossed the window, this obviously was the shadow of a bomb passing over us because seconds later followed a loud thud, my first thought was for my mum so I ran down the stairs, opened the front door and was met by clouds of dust, debris and strong smell of gas. The bomb had fallen on the house next to ours, I ran across to our front door which the blast had opened and saw my mum coming down the stairs, at the time I was wearing a green woollen pixie hat which I had proudly knitted myself and as I got closer to my mum she snatched the hat off my head and threw it up the passage, I鈥檓 not sure what made her do this. I know she hated the colour green and considered it to be unlucky so whether she thought because I was wearing green it caused this disaster to happen I don鈥檛 know, but I was never allowed to wear that pixie hat again although I thought we were very lucky to be alive. By now the rescue workers had arrived next door and were digging amongst the rubble looking for the two ladies and young boy who lived there. Sadly both women were killed but the boy, Ronnie who was between ten and eleven survived, we were then told by one of the men that because our house was so badly damaged we would have to leave as it wasn鈥檛 considered safe to live in.
Not long after a relative of ours uncle Ken arrived he had heard that a bomb had fallen in Marmion Road and had come to check that we were both safe, he suggested all the family should stay with him and his wife. Mum thought this was very good of him considering there was seven of us, mum and I, my dad, two brothers and two sisters who were all at work at this time so it was quite a lot to take on, people then seemed to rally round and help each other during these hard times. Sometime later after mum had packed a few clothes into a suit-case, we left to go to my uncle鈥檚 house which was only a short distance away from us. The air-raids continued every night so once again we took shelter this time in the cellar of my uncle鈥檚 house, it was difficult to sleep with the noise of the blitz so usually we either read books or I would play with my dolls. During the days in between raids mum and I would walk across Clapham Common to our house to feed Mickey the cat who we had to leave behind, I鈥檓 pleased to say that apart from a cut nose he had survived the bomb. Later on when we had a place of our own, we bought him back to live with us. We stayed with my uncle for several months and during the year of 1941 mum managed to find us a flat over the top of a dairy in Northcote Road near Clapham Junction. The main reason she took this flat on was that it had an Anderson shelter in the back yard of the shop covered by the corrugated roof of a shed. After we moved in we noticed that Anderson shelters were not fitted with a door, so dad managed to get hold of a number of sand-bags and placed them into an L shape position across the front entrance which he said would protect us from blast and keep out the cold. I was really surprised the first time I entered the shelter during a raid how loud the noise of the blitz was, compared to being in the cellar of a house I could clearly hear the distinct sounds of the anti-aircraft guns pounding away on Clapham Common, exploding bombs, and the bells of the fire engines as they rushed past, where in the cellar of a house these sounds were all muffled.
Being the shortest one in the family I was given the small top bunk bed at the back of the shelter, there was also one other bunk placed along one side of the wall where my teenage brother slept, the rest of the family lay on the floor so it was quite cramped. At night I would lie on the bunk and watch as our warm breath would cause condensation to run slowly down the grooves of the cold corrugated metal walls giving the atmosphere a damp and musty smell. As you can imagine it wasn鈥檛 the most ideal conditions to be in but at least we felt reasonably safe.
The following years from 1942-43 are not very clear, I cannot remember any particular events happening during this time, obviously the air-raids did continue but there were also quiet periods in between. It was during one of these long quiet spells between bombings that many evacuees returned to London and the schools re-opened, it was at this time I started back as a new pupil to Honeywell Road school, previously some of the schools had been used for communal kitchens which anybody could use but were mainly opened for people that were bombed out and could buy a hot meal. I can recall on two occasions going with mum to Broomwood Road school where you could purchase a ticket that probably cost no more than a shilling (5p) for a dinner and pudding, as I remember they were every good meals.
My next very clear memory was in 1944, I was now fourteen, it was in the middle of June when the V1 bombings, or Doodle Bugs as they were called had started, after a quiet period the familiar sound of the siren went once again, the only difference was the length of time was far longer between the air-raid warning to the all clear, I have always thought the reason for this was because the radar instruments could detect when planes had left but it was more difficult to know when the flying bombs would stop coming across. These raids continued for several weeks and during this time once the siren went I seemed to spend hours in our back yard listening for the sound of the Doodle Bugs engines then running into the hall and calling up the stairs, 鈥渕um, there鈥檚 one coming鈥�, she was not a bit afraid of the raids at all and would seldom come down to the shelter. One early evening the siren had gone about five o鈥檆lock and as usual I was outside keeping watch when I saw this flying bomb coming across very low in the sky, so I ran into warn my mum, and this time she did come down the stairs. By now the engine of the Doodle Bug had cut out, and as we didn鈥檛 have time to get to the shelter we stood by the cellar door. My brother Dennis who was home from work stood in front of my mum and I with his arms outstretched above our heads and his hands pressed against the wall behind us as though he was going to prevent it from falling on top of us. I was standing with my fingers in my ears as I often did in most raids to shut out the noise, then there was this loud explosion, the Doodle Bug had dropped at the back of the shops opposite us, it had fallen on two rows of houses between Broomwood Road and Honeywell Road where my school friend Gwen had lived. Fortunately Gwen survived but her dad and grandmother were killed, we went to the front door and once again I could smell the dust and debris. All the shop windows had been blown out with broken glass scattered all around and people running about everywhere. My brother dashed to the chemist shop two doors away and grabbed a bottle of iodine and started to give first aid to passers-by who had been cut by flying glass. Our flat was quite badly damaged with shattered windows, ceilings down and plaster falling from the walls, but at least we were all safe and didn鈥檛 have to move out this time.
It was shortly after these raids had ended in late August that the V2 rocket attacks began towards the end of October, these were far more destructive than the V1鈥檚. I can remember people telling me that just one rocket could wipe out a whole street. As far as I know only one of these fell in Battersea, luckily not near us.
As I was almost due to leave school during this period and because of these raids I never returned to school.
My last and happiest memory was at the end of the war early in 1945. I can remember going with all my family to central London to join in the celebrations on VE night. During the late evening somehow my sister-in-law June and I were separated from the others in the large crowds and ended up on Liverpool Street Station sitting on a luggage trolley waiting for a train to take us home, and which never arrived. As it was late at night there appeared to be no transport running at all so we decided to start walking. I can remember clearly walking home in the early hours of the morning along the Embankment towards Vauxhall Bridge. Apparently each member of the family were also separated from each other, so they too walked back and we all arrived home at different times of the morning.
It was such a great feeling of relief now the war was over knowing at last you felt really safe. To be able to go to bed at night without fear of the siren waking you, or on hearing a plane overhead knowing it was one of ours and not the enemy, it was truly wonderful.
When I look back now and think of all the millions of people that were killed and those that lost loved ones I feel we were an extremely lucky family to have all survived such a terrible war.

Mrs A.Q Sykes

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