大象传媒

Wailing sirens over Welling (Kent) Bob Coote (b. 1932)
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I well recall the day the Prime Minister announced 鈥淲e are at war with Germany鈥︹��

Being just seven years old and playing on the floor with the inevitable toy soldiers I was
misguidedly absolutely delighted ! Such excitement 鈥� childhood shelters the mind from the ramification of what was to come 鈥� and what was to colour and influence the rest of my life.

Things of course started quite slowly and gradually. Eventually we were in to the period of night bombing 鈥� during which my Dad who was wounded in the first world war and therefore at home most of the war on essential duties, would not call for us to take night time cover in the Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden. Rather, we would wait until bombers were in our immediate area before taking refuge, then deciding if it were for a short period or for the rest of the night. The concentrated over flying of our area in N.W. Kent by the Luftwaffe in the actual Blitz period , and their habit of jettisoning their bomb loads when meeting up with the AA gunfire as they came across the suburbs led us to shelter more or less constantly for that particular period.

Some school pupils were evacuated of course, but the remainder of teachers were still with us and education went on apace. However classes were entwined with orderly filing down the school shelters where some semblance of lessons were continued under lantern torch light. We had strict instructions that if the air raid warning sounded when we were on the way to or from school 鈥� we were to hurry to the nearest safety 鈥� that of school or our own home 鈥� which ever was nearest. I well remember dawdling all the way to school after the lunch break at home, and some yards short of the school entrance 鈥� the siren sounded and I set off with friends for the swift 20 minute walk back home ! So you see that far into the war 鈥� I was still being blaze about the whole thing.

A lunchtime raid saw a bomb demolish two houses just across our road, and I sat out on the pavement and watched the rescue squads do their bit. We had somehow got a bad feeling about this sudden solo raid, and as the bomb exploded mother and I were in the garden shelter at the time. Coming out of cover and making my way up the garden I saw a large lump of shrapnel of the lawn, and picking it up 鈥� suddenly realised it was very, very hot !

Shrapnel was the 鈥榗urrency鈥� among the school kids 鈥� we all went around with biscuit tins full of shrapnel, bullet and shell casings, appraising each others collections and doing various 鈥榮waps鈥� between friends.

One night a bomber jettisoned its load of incendiary bombs over the immediate area 鈥� and next morning, out with elder friends, we were up the trees in the street and carefully loosening and freeing many, many incendiary bombs that were hung up in the branches. These would be spirited away to some hiding place for later unscrewing and emptying the incendiary content from the undamaged casing. This led to many clandestine fireworks displays in the days following.

School was reduced at one stage to either mornings or afternoons 鈥� due to the shortage of teachers one supposes now, at the height of the blitz 鈥� I was allowed on occasions to join Dad and a neighbour for 鈥渇ire watching鈥� which was really standing in the garden 鈥� watching all the target illuminating flares float across the night sky, and the ack ack bursts setting up a backdrop of flash effects and on the famous night that the bombers burned down the docks and the east end 鈥� I was able to comfortably sit in the back garden and read the daily newspaper from the light of the intense fires some 10 miles distant.

My fond memory of this era was that in the school holidays my friends and I were allowed out all day with a jam sandwich and a bottle of pop, parents would not worry about us overly 鈥� and we would creep home as the sun sank and our tummies told us it was tea time. We would wander far and wide, streetwise for any enemy activity of course 鈥� and were thankful for the impressive freedom we enjoyed even then as children.

Following this we had a comparative peaceful time 鈥� that was until the fatal night that the first V1 flying bomb roared over on the way to town. Not knowing what this was of course became very frightening at that stage, but as the days passed by and we became aware of the weapon, we lived 鈥渁round鈥� their appearances by night and day. Very soon we boys were asked to keep a watch during school holidays to the South from a vantage point on the opposite side of the road (now a bomb site) we would scan the horizon and blow an ARP whistle when a doodle bug was heading our way, or appeared to be a hazard. This helped the local housewives to carry on with their work and activities till the last minute.

The V2 was to be next to confront life, this time once we knew the nature of the beast we became as a community very complacent about the whole thing.

Of all the suburbs in London, why would it fall in our Borough 鈥� and if it did 鈥� why would it fall in our area, what were the actual chances of it falling in our road we thought. Going about our business or living life as near normal became the mode 鈥� for one way and another the thinking was that if you stayed home you were just as likely to 鈥榗op鈥� a rocket strike as you were if you were out shopping or visiting elsewhere. A bit of the 鈥渋f your name is on it鈥� philosophy I suppose.

I well recall the lunchtime at home with the one o鈥檆lock news announcing that 鈥榝orces had landed on the European mainland that morning鈥� and therefore we realised it was D day. This was marked with whole fleets of aircraft heading out across the skies 鈥� only to return later in the day with engines on fire 鈥� or great holes in the body and wings. People would stop and things came to a standstill, to watch these fighting machines pass by on a daily basis at this stage.

I was always allowed to go up to town on my own for the day in the holidays, taking tram or train, doing a well practiced route from Charing Cross through to Regent Street to look at the toy shop there, then turning right at Oxford circus and strolling the whole length of Oxford Street and Holborn only turning down Kingsway after checking out a couple of 鈥榤agic鈥� shops which was my bag in those days 鈥� aged 11 onwards.

Then of course at age thirteen I was off up town to join the happy celebrations of VE day, and spend best part of the day enjoying the atmosphere, and being allowed up town again 鈥� this time for an overnight sleep in the Mall to witness the Victory march past shortly after..

Children don鈥檛 appear to have such 鈥榚njoyable freedom鈥� today !

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