大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Emma Burman of CSV Media on behalf of David Sevante and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Evacuation
As a child I lived in London and when the war started my brother and I were evacuated to Iver Heath, 12 miles away. We were billeted with a 21 year old couple who had only been married 6 months or so. They treated us almost like family.

In the afternoons we attended the village school with the local children. I was a second former, but I had to be put in the fourth form with my brother, so none of it made much sense to me.

Later I was privately evacuated to Henley upon Thames and lived with my mother and younger brother in the thatched cottage in the heart of the woods.

My aunt and her daughter who lived in Fulham moved to Nottingham when the bombing got bad in London. Ironically, they were bombed out there and my aunt lost an eye.

Life in London
When I was 15 I left school, giving up the prospect of university, and returned to London to work for an insurance company in Pall Mall.

I would look out towards Haymarket and when the V1s were coming the black ball on top of the Lloyds building would be raised up as a warning. I would ring a bell and everyone would go down into the cellars. When we heard the explosion we would come back up.

One day a V2 exploded in the air before it landed and made a big smoke ring in the sky.

At home we had a Morrison shelter in the kitchen which we slept under every night.

On evening my father and I were returning home from the cinema. We could see two V1s heading towards us from opposite directions. We watched them carefully, trying to think where to go. One of them landed only half a mile away.

In spite the horrors of the war, the community spirit in London made it one of the happiest times of my life.

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