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This story is submitted to the People’s War site by a member of Market Harborough Branch, Royal British Legion on behalf of Corrine Wakefield and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Wakefield fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Dulwich Childhood during the Bombing

When the war started in September 1939 I was eleven years old and living in Dulwich in South London with my parents. My aunt and uncle lived next door and we were a close family unit.

Our school was evacuated, and we had the chance to go with them, but it had been decided that in the event of war, I would take up the opportunity of a private evacuation with one of my school friends whose father worked for a city underwriters, where his boss had offered a home to any children of his employees. I was invited to go as her friend. Off we went to their home in a village in Kent. It was a beautiful old house, thought to have been built about 1400 in the reign of Henry IV on the site of a much older house. It was set in extensive grounds in which there was an oast-house which had been turned into a museum as the owners were collectors of antiques of all kinds. Our hosts were kindness itself to us and we were soon on ‘auntie’ and ‘uncle’ terms. We led a much more luxurious life than we were used to at home, as there was a large staff at that time before they all went off to various war jobs and the services. In fact we had never had it so good! We slept in a panelled bedroom and were woken in the morning by the butler with tea, took lovely meals with the family and were driven to school by a chauffeur. By an amazing coincidence our own school had moved to share a school in the town four miles away, so we were able to continue attending, sharing mornings or afternoons with the other school. There were no shortages then and we really had a lovely time and I kept in touch with the family for many years.

We stayed in Kent till March 1940 when our school returned to London where it remained throughout the war, so we went with it. The school attendance was greatly reduced, but we all carried on as usual and things were quiet until August when the air raids really started and then we had them on and off all the time. An air raid shelter for the family had been built next door, at my aunt and uncle’s house, and took the form of a blast wall built outside their hall window, and my parents and I slept in a row on the floor. Uncle and auntie slept under the stairs and as the noise of gunfire increased, so did uncle’s snores. The gunfire was terribly noisy coming from the gun battery on Dulwich Common as were the sounds of falling bombs and explosions, the sky was lit up by search lights. There were raids on and off the whole time now, and in September the London Docks were badly hit and hundreds killed and hurt. Two days later our local library was bombed and afterwards our post office and a row of shops.

School went on as usual, except for a short time when the building was hit by an incendiary bomb the roof damaged and the basement was flooded. This was where we went to during the raids, and lessons continued there until the ‘all clear’. We were required to have a tin of ‘iron rations’, kept there at all times, in case we were detained by a raid. This was certainly needed sometimes, and I remember being annoyed to find one day that a particularly nice wrapped biscuit that my mother had saved for me had disappeared! Sometimes we were caught by a raid on the way to or from school and had to lie down in the road at the whistle of an approaching bomb.

Life continued as best as possible, my father going to work at the Government Laboratory in the city but he was often late home due to bombing and disruption of routes home, sometimes having to walk quite a bit of the way. Once there was a time bomb on the building which put a stop to their work for two days.

One night in late October we were all asleep when a landmine landed at the end of our road. There was a terrific explosion which woke us all. My mother, sleeping next to me, threw herself over me at the same time as I sat up and we collided, both getting bruises! Several houses were demolished and our two were badly damaged, four people were injured but no one was killed. Our roofs were off, windows and doors blown out and ceilings down. I went into the kitchen with my aunt where she had a dresser with rows of plates propped up. All these plates were intact but dangling dangerously over the edge of the shelf. Together we carefully put them back again. I shall never forget those plates. The clearing up began, windows and doors were replaced, roofs mended and houses made secure. But it was a terrible mess and the whole road looked derelict.

We couldn’t remain in the house, so the five of us departed to Guildford where we lodged with a widow lady. My father and uncle went up to London on the train each day, and I went to the local school. The lodgings were not ideal as there wasn’t room for all of us and my parents and I had to sleep down the road at another house. But this house was run by a lovely lady who was so kind to us, unlike the other one who didn’t really want us there at all. It was very difficult for us all, the school didn’t have room for me in the right class and I had to go into a class of older girls, then I caught measles and was quite ill, and the weather was snowy and very cold. We stayed till February by which time my aunt and uncle had gone to live in Shrewsbury where uncle’s office was evacuated to, and the three of us returned to Dulwich, All this time, during December and January bad raids on London had continued but we were all miserable and decided we would go home.

Back we went to Dulwich to a derelict house, the tank had burst, the ceilings were down, it was damp and getting ruined. We all set to with clearing up the terrible mess and the local builder came and put in a new tank, and repaired the ceilings. But we were so glad to be home, our spirits, which had been at a low ebb, rose, I went back to school again, - I had lost a lot of education. The raids continued but they were not so frequent, though one had to beware of shrapnel falling and I sometimes took a tin hat, particularly if riding my bike after dark. I once went to a concert at the Albert Hall with a tin hat, where incidentally the concerts continued throughout raids. Raids continued off and on through 1943 and 1944, my mother was in the WVS (Women’s Voluntary Service) and helped a lot with victims of the bombing and at incidents and my father was a Sector Fire Captain and we had fire exercises at times. I then acted as a messenger, going by bike, the telephone system not being what it is today.

I left school and went to the City of London College in the city. In the middle of June 1944 we had the first flying bomb - Doodlebug VI - You could hear-them coming with a funny chuntering noise which was alright till the engine cut out. That was the time to take cover. It was summer and sometimes we stood in the garden watching them till the last minute. Once it was silent you dashed indoors and waited for the explosion. The flying bombs continued and we had many falling near us blowing out our windows and causing us minor damage and we had to return to sleeping on the floor under the blast wall again. Just before I left College in July 1944 I was queuing up for lunch in Lyons teashop in London Wall, when a bomb exploded, damaging the College and causing us all to lie on the floor while glass etc blew in on us. College had to close a bit early. My aunt and uncle had returned home again by now. In August we had a Morrison shelter put up in our dining room. It was like a large strengthened metal table you could sleep under, and you could have your dinner on top. So back we were to sleeping three in a row, this time in the Morrison which was a bit weird.

In September we heard sudden explosions. These were the rockets (V2s) and you didn’t hear them coming, they took you by surprise. On a Saturday afternoon in January 1945, when we were all looking forward to an end to the war, we were sitting having tea round the fire in our dining room when a V2 rocket fell on the corner of our road. There was a loud explosion then a roar, the lights went out and the blast caused the fire to be sucked out into the room and then back again, and the windows all blew in. I had a boyfriend by then and he was visiting us prior to returning off leave to the RAF. My mother had a glass cake stand with a stem, on which stood the Christmas cake, and when the lights went on again, she was still holding it out to my boyfriend, but the stem had been sliced off by flying glass. We were all uninjured, except the boyfriend who had a minor leg cut, because the glass had blown in sideways. If we had been in the back of the house we would have been badly cut as the glass came in sharply and was sticking into the sofa. The house was badly damaged, with the roof and doors off, ceilings down and no windows but we were all o.k. Some people were killed, four I think. We all started clearing up and tried to get straight. Tarpaulins were supplied to cover the roofs before they could be mended, and ceilings and windows were repaired by workmen from the Council but the rest was up to us. It took a long time and the weather was bitterly cold with fog, snow and ice. We were very cold. My parents were tired and sad to see their home devastated a second time, but we had a lot to be thankful for, and four months later peace in Europe was declared.

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