大象传媒

鈥� And that consequently this country is at war with Germany鈥�. These momentous words, that were part of the statement that was spoken by the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, from the Cabinet Room in 10 Downing Street, sounded from our 鈥淧hilco鈥� wireless at precisely 11.15, that Sunday morning, the 3rd. September 1939. The rest of the Prime Minster鈥檚 statement was listened to but I do not think absorbed by my parents who were physically stunned and found it hard to believe that their greatest fear had actually happened. It had been just over twenty years, when they themselves had been only children that the last devastating war had ended. The war that had been spoke of as 鈥淭he war to end all wars鈥�. Now with a family of their own perhaps they were to face an even greater threat.

Within half of an hour of the announcement, and of being at war, the warning siren, which we had previously heard in practice, sounded its dreadful ominous undulating wail. Surely not, they can鈥檛 be coming already, and with uncertainty and not quite sure of what action to take, we all went to the front room window. The siren had stopped and the road outside was deserted apart from two middle-aged gentlemen, who were running like the wind and crossing the road almost opposite us. The news of war had obviously reached them and the siren had urged them to leave wherever they had been and make haste for their homes. One man was small and slim, the other a much larger and corpulent person, who wore a brown suit and was holding a brown bowler hat tightly to his head. Their appearance and attitude reminded me of Laurel and Hardy and a memory, which stayed with me throughout the years. Yes, that comic recollection at a frightening moment was my first memory of the outbreak of the Second World War. Incidentally that first warning alert was a false alarm, for what had been thought to be enemy hostiles flying in over the Kent Coast, turned out to be six friendly aircraft reporting back to Britain after they had received news of the war announcement.

Monday morning came and a lot of activity was going on behind the scenes, which I didn鈥檛 comprehend or appreciate. Dad had come to realise that most evacuation groups were full to the limit they could take and indeed most groups had already left for their destination. Mum had been told to prepare to go at short notice and he was to see what he could organise. Around late morning he returned expressing some urgency for us to leave. Outside was a firm鈥檚 car into which Mum, Ron and I were hastened, together with the small amount of luggage we were taking and of course our gas masks. Also coming with us in the car and on our impending journey was Sid Robertson鈥檚 Wife Renee and their very young daughter Iris. We travelled to Plough Road School in Battersea, close to the Granada, Clapham, where the evacuation party had not yet left and Dad had managed to fix it for us to join it at the last minute. He also had arranged for my Aunt Lil and my cousins Bob and Bryan to go too, and they were waiting for us when we got there. Mum gave Dad a last minute message, to get Gran and my Uncle George to leave their home in Clapham and use our house in Wandsworth, as it would be safer. Mum鈥檚 yardstick being the further from the dead centre of London the smaller the risk.

After hurried goodbyes to the few Fathers that could be there, we were whisked off in L.C.C. coaches to Paddington Station where we boarded a steam train that had already a number of evacuees on it. The three ladies in our group managed to get seated altogether and there may have been seats for us children, but I cannot recall, as I am certain I never had any intention of spending much time sitting down. This was the first corridor train I had been on and spent much of this part of the journey out of the compartment and up and down the corridor with a mob of other kids. We pulled into Bristol Temple Mead Station where we had to wait for a time, while our engine was changed for a local steam engine. Our engine replaced, we pulled out from the station bound for what was to be our intended destination, and some adult cheerfully implied that us children would all be on the beach the next day.

We arrived in Weston Super Mare, where we waited in the station for some considerable time; eventually the news was filtered back through the train that the town could not take us, as it was already bursting at the seams with evacuees. After some further time the train started travelling back in the direction from where we came, but obviously we must have transferred onto another track, as we arrived at the town of Clevedon where to we were also told we could not be accommodated. The day was now turning into early evening and the only food we had had all day was the small amount of food we had brought from home and weariness was starting to get to everyone. I feel certain by then, resignation and the thought of the possibility that we wouldn鈥檛 get in anywhere and that they might yet have to take us all back home, was starting to creep into our Mothers鈥� minds. However when at last we arrived in the town of Portishead and with relief it was realised they could take us, we knew our journey was over.

After disembarking from the train, a large group of us were taken to a village hall, with our small group of eight, all the time, trying to keep together. We joined a group already in the hall, but stood a little apart from them. These folk turned out to be the local people who we were to stay with. From a small stage, the billeting officer, an elderly gentleman who with a couple of assistants, started to call out names. Gradually someone from our group would join up with someone from the other group and together they left the hall. Renee Robertson was the first of us to go and she left, with her baby Iris in her arms and a small wave goodbye and she left with quite a smart young couple. Aunt Lil was called next and she went off bustling Bob and Bryan along in front her like a couple of ducklings, and following a sour looking not very endearing couple. Slowly and progressively the hall was emptying and by now I felt tired and I am certain Mum and Ron were to. Eventually we were standing there alone, and it was then the billeting officer came over to us and placing his arms around Ron's and my shoulders, said to Mum you are coming with me. We got into the benevolent old gentleman鈥檚 car and we were driven up the hill to 鈥淭ower Farm鈥�. Our first visit to Somerset had started, although a surprisingly short visit as was to turn out to be.

To tired that night to take in or remember anything, as it must have been straight to bed, although, I slightly recall as we entered the house in the evening twilight, the smell of lavender and the smell of oil lamps. However it was all very different the next morning, having slept in the cosiest bed ever with beautiful white linen sheets and the plumpest of pillows I was now raring to explore. Firstly waking with the sun streaming through the leaded light windows into the dark wood panelled room that was really comfortably furnished in a delightful country style, and this was to be the bedroom for Mum, Ron and myself. However what was really exciting was the realisation that our room was the top room in a castle tower, from which you could only leave by descending a winding stone staircase that circled down to a grand entrance hall. In this hall stood a large grandfather clock but more important a wooden aeroplane propeller, which to me was awe inspiring. The propeller, and sadly as it turned out, was from the aeroplane in which the pilot son of Mr and Mrs Beasley had been killed, in the Great War. Mr and Mrs Beasley was a delightful old couple who made us immediately welcome, and by coincidence Mr Beasley had been an acquaintance of Mr Jack Seccombe, the company Chairman of Slumberland in Birmingham and Dad鈥檚 supreme boss. It would appear that they had played golf together on many an occasion. A small world!

From the house, the drive, which ran to the front gates, was lined both sides with wooden sheds of great age and character and were full of old farming implements. Flower and vegetable boxing and crating was carried out in these sheds and it was in one of these that Mr Beasley took from the wall a rifle and handed to me, saying 鈥淲e will be taking you to shoot rabbits in the not to distant future鈥�. Now in all honesty I know not whether the promise was meant or even if the rifle worked, but to my young mind, I now possessed a real gun and I was going hunting. I can remember walking around with the rifle over my shoulder like some 鈥淕reat White Hunter鈥�. Behind the sheds were large walled gardens, which were full of produce. The walls were high and made of red brick and on one beautiful sunny evening I remember Mr Beasley picking a fully ripe peach from a cordon tree attached to a sun drenched wall and giving it to Mum, and this had been unbelievable to us Londoners. After us boys had gone off to bed at the end of the day, Mum would sit with the Beasleys in their sitting room and have supper. This consisted of a large cheese board with a huge piece of Cheddar cheese on it and from which a generous helping was cut and handed to her. This she ate accompanied by biscuits from a large container placed along side her, and the continued insistence by her host to have more. A large cup of cocoa went with it. A very Somerset traditional and civilised way for an adult to finish the day, but to Mum it was all very new and strange. One evening, after bidding goodnight to the Beasleys, she made a fairly early exit to bed. Closing the sitting room door behind her, she climbed the spiralling dark staircase up to our room at the top and to where we were sound asleep. When she was nearing the top she claimed that she saw a dark shadowy figure, which was descending the stairs towards her, and she felt an icy presence, as it went by. She often recounted that experience in later years when recollections to Portishead were made. Whether it was a ghost Mum encountered, or the result of to much cheese, I shall never know, but I often wondered if it might have had something to do with the Beasley鈥檚 dead pilot son. A scarey thought when you are young, but as I grew older and reflected back, I felt it would have been nice if it had have been.

Mum, whilst Ron and I stayed behind and played on the farm, had already been into Portishead by car with Mr Beasley to shop for things that had become essential. But now for the first time, since arriving, we were on our own, and the three of us left the farm to investigate the local area, but secretly though, Mum wanted to see if she could find her sister Lily. Out into the lane and needing to decide which way to go, looking left we could see the chimneys of Portishead Power Station and to the right a few house tops, so that was the way we went. The houses were a little further than we thought, but after awhile and as we were approaching them, walking gently down hill, from around the bend by a church came Aunt Lil with Bryan in a pushchair and Bob hanging onto its side. They looked terribly exhausted and when they got to us, Mum and her Sister fell into each other鈥檚 arms as if they hadn鈥檛 laid eyes on each other for months. It could have been at the most only two or three days since they last saw each other.
. It would appear they had set out to find us and had walked for miles. From the conversation that followed it would have appeared their accommodation and the people they were staying with, were nowhere like ours. The people had hardly spoken to them since they had arrived and they had been pushed off to their room with an oil lamp and they had hardly left it. I believe that later it was always referred to as 鈥淐old Comfort Farm鈥�. Aunt Lil had news of Renee Robertson. She had seen Renee, with the family she was accommodated with, outside the house where she was staying. Renee had given her the impression that she was very happy, and after Aunt Lil had spied the tennis court in the garden she felt that Renee had come out of things rather well.

Dad arrived out of the blue on Saturday morning with Sid. They had left Wandsworth early that morning to spend a relaxing weekend with their families. This seemed the happiest time ever, for me now Dad had arrived and I had wanted to show him all the exciting things that were around 鈥淭ower Farm鈥�. What I hadn鈥檛 realised that Mum was unhappy and indeed homesick and she was already expressing to him her wish to go home. Sid went off to see his wife with the news that we were going home, and within a short time had returned with Renee who had decided that she wanted to go home too. It appeared her situation at the house where she was staying, was not as comfortable as had seemed by appearances, for she had been looked on as a domestic servant by the people she was staying with. Into the car we piled and over to where Aunt Lil was billeted, and in what must have been no more than two minutes the three of them were squeezing in the car with us. So it was then that ten of us (5 Adults and 5 children) in a 1934 grey Austin saloon car left and said farewell to Somerset after perhaps one of the shortest evacuation periods of the war, to return to London and home, but why? How could we have left that paradise? Of course I hadn鈥檛 been in on the discussion. I have often wondered since about old Mr and Mrs Beasley, and how thy must have felt, One minute they had three evacuees, who they had made at home and had appeared very content, and the next minute they had gone, those three evacuees, who had been hand, picked by Mr Beasley himself, as the billeting Officer.

On many occasion I have wished I could have returned to 鈥淭ower Farm鈥� as I grew older, but the Beasleys were of an age that it would have been doubtful if they had been alive by the time I could have visited under my own steam. 鈥淭ower Farm鈥� itself was demolished in 1968, to make way for a large housing development, and on a recent visit of nostalgia to the area barely anything was recognisable, for only one small section of wall remained on just a small stretch of lane. Even the power station chimneys that I had seen from the farm gate had been pulled down and had gone.

The journey home was a long one, for it must be remembered that there were no motorways and very few dual carriageways in those days. Sid had already driven the journey down that morning and he would be driving all the way home, as Dad couldn鈥檛 drive at that time. The car was seriously over crowded and we were weighed down with luggage as well, so with the old fashion leaf springs well compressed and having to deal with uneven roads, it all led to a very bumpy ride. The journey started very well for me, as I was standing on the front passenger seat with my feet between Dad鈥檚 legs and with my head and shoulders out of the sunroof. The use of seat belts was also along way off and not yet dreamt of with regard to cars. This grandstand position to start with was exhilarating as we sailed through the centre of Bristol and on towards Bath. From there and on through Chippenham and Marlborough along the A4, and by then the journey was starting to drag out. The late afternoon sunshine was still bright but it had now started to turn decidedly chilly and so I was content to share the available space in the front passenger well, with Ron, but it was cramped with no space to curl up for a sleep. After a couple of stops at roadside cafes and by the time we had got to Reading it was dark, and the first effect and experience of the new blackout restrictions were encountered. There was no street lights or lights in the shop windows. The traffic lights had been shield and not so easy seen, as were the car headlights which made it that much harder to see the way ahead, so driving was that much more difficult and progress that much slower. Travelling through the outskirts to the western approaches of London the roads were quite desolate and no lights could be seen from the houses on either side. Buses, with their interior lights at just a low wattage became visible only when they were almost on top of you. Finally we reached Hammersmith Broadway and turned off towards Wandsworth, and nearly home.

I think we arrived at our front door around 10o/clock at night, all bedraggled and quite worn out. Dad gave a couple of loud knocks on the door, before opening it with his key. Through the stained glass of the front door, the light of the kitchen, as its door open, showed along the hallway. Down the passage came my Gran, escorted by Uncle George and Uncle Bert, obviously wondering who this could be at this time of night, and maybe even thinking that it could be the Nazi invaders! 鈥淥h my goodness what are you doing home鈥� had said Gran in disbelief at seeing us. The house smelt of the piece of smoked haddock that had been cooked for George鈥檚 tea, and it could be seen that Gran and the others were comfortably settled in for the duration.

The next day, my Gran, my Uncles, Aunt Lil, Bobby and Brian went back to their homes. In less than a week our complete change of life as evacuees in Somerset had taken place, was now over, and we had reverted back to life as normal in 鈥�51鈥�. Yes it was 鈥淭ake Two鈥�, and we started our war over again.

And it was to be life more or less as normal. After the initial apprehension and dread in the first few days of the outbreak of the war and after the two or three false air raid alarms, the urgency subsided. Of course preparations for war and defence continued, more and more service uniforms and civil defence uniforms were appearing on the streets, and the barrage balloon had arrived on the common along with a half dozen or so W.A.A.F. personnel. The councilmen converted our coal cellar into an air raid shelter, and at the Slumberland factory, shelters were being built for the workers. In the streets broad white bands were painted around all the trees and lampposts and kerbs received a strip of white paint about every six foot. This was to assist people after dark, in the black out.

Because of the insatiable need for metal for the manufacture of munitions, the Government had decided that it needed to confiscate all the available metal in the country. One day, slowly down the road came workmen who were systematically removing every cast iron railing and front gate and throwing it into the lorry that moved along side it. Our squeaking gate and railings were roughly hacked off and disappeared into that lorry forever. Left behind were little 2-inch stumps that remained like that for decades.

However the weeks were going by, and although the news in Europe was not good, the feared Aerial Bombardment of Britain had not taken place. The threat seemed to be diminishing with the public鈥檚 awareness of Britain鈥檚 continuing preparedness and the thought that perhaps the Germans had more than enough to cope with elsewhere. In fact complacency set in and the war was being spoke of as 鈥淭he Phoney War鈥�. With the Civil Defence preparations more or less complete, its service members were getting bored with the long hours of watch duty and hanging about. Games of darts and cards became the order of the day. The public were finding such restrictions as the blackout getting them down, and fed up with being shouted at, should a chink of light escape, with 鈥淧ut that light out鈥�, from the local constabulary or air warden.

School had very soon restarted, but only one classroom was needed in the large school building of three floors, and initially lessons took place for only two or three days a week. However soon and as other children started to returned home from evacuation the school quickly increased to having several more classes. Two classrooms on the ground floor had their large windows covered completely with stacked sandbags, to a thickness of about eight bags; these classrooms were our air raid shelters for our use during school hours.

Shortages had not really started to take place yet, and I remember it was around this period Ron and I, both had like fawn colour overcoats with large matching soft flat caps, bought for us on the 鈥淣ever, never鈥�. Mum, at that time paid a few shillings each week to a collector who called and every so often she would receive a chit for an amount that she could spend. It would be then that us two boys were taken over to Hugh Wylies, a tally firm, who had a showroom in a small parade alongside Lambeth Town Hall, to be fitted out. This method of purchase was a popular and generally accepted way of buying clothes and household goods amongst ordinary folk. It also was about this time Mum got her first Hoover vacuum cleaner, although our carpeting then only stretched to a few rugs. We continued to eat more or less the same variety of food as in the past, and I cannot recall any particular food shortage at that early stage of the war.

It was around this time though the instruction came from the Ministry of Food that we should 鈥淒ig for Victory鈥�, and so it was that Dad became a vegetable gardener? The back lawn disappeared, and I made the attempted to do the same, but it seemed I was an essential requirement in the tilling of at least one row of earth each day. I can not recall how much success we had in the production of vegetables, but I do remember included in this new husbandry of the garden, was a Light Sussex cockerel and six hens, a Rhode Island Red cockerel also with six hens, plus a couple of tiny Black Leghorns. One of the Leghorns was nicknamed 鈥淪pitfire鈥� because she was the fastest thing you ever saw on two legs, plus she laid the biggest eggs we had ever seen. Our two cockerels were two fine looking specimens, but because of inexperience, we hadn鈥檛 realised that we should not have kept two such birds in so closer quarters, and there were often instinctive fights between them. The Larger Light Sussex Cock always seemed to come off worse against the smaller Rhode Island Red, and sometimes he looked a sorry sight with blood covering his pure white feathers. To make up our miniature farmyard, came several rabbits, installed in individual hutches that had been made by Dad, as indeed the chicken house had been, from wood off cuts from the factory. We had now guaranteed our egg supply, and the occasional chicken or rabbit dinner. The two cockerels would separately and in due time become our Christmas dinner. The battle worn Light Sussex eventually had some respite, as his opponent was first go to the oven. Unfortunately when it came to his turn, he didn鈥檛 go without a fuss. Dad could never manage the knack of wringing chicken necks efficiently, especially when it came to cockerels, so he chose to use his fireman鈥檚 axe, and behead them. This he did with their heads in a sack so that he didn鈥檛 have to see the deadly deed, but this seldom led to an effective accomplishment. Just as with the Duke of Monmouth in the 鈥淐ivil War鈥�, it took about five strokes of the axe to put away our Light Sussex.

We kept chicken and rabbits for about three years, and it was Ron and my weekly chore to visit the corn chandlers to collect their food and bedding materials. Crouch and Son were in Garrett Lane about three quarters of a mile away, and every Saturday morning we could be seen struggling back home with 7 LB bags of balancer meal for the chickens and oatmeal for the rabbits. A large bale of straw and a bundle of hay were either dragged along or carried on our head. The mixing of the feed and the feeding was mainly down to us, although Mum cooked the potato peelings on the gas stove. Our war effort also entailed us going out on a regular basis, with a bucket and a shovel and search for horse manure, that was good for the garden and left behind by the traders鈥� horse and carts. On many occasion after Ron and I had reconnoited for the daily deposits, Dad would come in and chastise us for dereliction of duty, as he had just seen some down the road, and off we were sent again. Sometimes just to miss out as some else that got there first.

The time of not being to inconvenienced by war and not being threatened was however fast running out, and it wasn鈥檛 to be long before the German U-boat menace, started to have its effect on our food convoys in the Atlantic. At the beginning of January 1940, during one of the coldest recorded winters, which was unimaginably cold, food rationing started and with certain foodstuff disappearing from our diet, for several years.

The German Luftwaffe鈥檚 first raids on the British Isles were on the Shetland and Orkney Islands, and the first bomb to fall on British soil was in Shetland, killing a rabbit. Which was great propaganda, and led to the song 鈥淩un Rabbit Run鈥� gaining renewed popularity and which was repeatedly sung on the radio. It stayed a war time favourite and was sung in many of the impromptu sing-a-long sessions that were initiated by people in the air raid shelters to distract their attention away from the turmoil of the raid going on outside. But perhaps purely to while away the long monotonous hours that could occur between raids.

Suddenly in the middle of May 1940 there was an obvious turn for the worst in Europe, with the German Army starting to overrun the Low Countries and invading France, there was the start of evacuation of the British Exbitionary Force from Dunkirk and the Channel Ports. On June 14th, which was my 9th.birthday day, Paris fell to the Germans, and by the middle of June the evacuation of the Allied Armies from Europe had been completed and the battle of France was over. The Battle of Britain was now about to begin.

At the end of June 1940 the sirens wailed out again in London, for the first time since September 1939. The German bombers had started to make spasmodic raids on the Capital, during daylight hours and at night, but at this stage its main concentration was on coastal installations and shipping in the Thames estuary, together with the R.A.F airfields of Kent. On these airfields the growing number of Hurricane and Spitfire fighter squadrons were flying almost continuous missions against a vastly stronger enemy machine that was now starting to make its raids, in an ever growing horde of heavily laden bombers and fighter planes, further inland. For the next three months the battle in the air over Southern England was to be fought at such intensity that it would cost thousands of lives and aircraft. The air battles were fought in the main over the County of Kent, but I can clearly recall watching, high in the late summer blue sky, above Wandsworth, the large swirling vapour trails of the R.A.F. fighter aircraft locked in conflict with the German planes, 鈥淒og Fights鈥�, as they were known.

It was somewhere around this period, when air raids were few and far between in London and with the sirens mainly sounding during the day and with very little or no bombing yet to be experienced in most of the London area. There must have been no tension or feeling of threat that evening when Dad decided to take us all to the pictures, and we took the bus to Putney. I suppose we had been in the Palace cinema no more than three-quarters of an hour, when the set of three coloured lights on either side of the screen changed from the green lights being lit to the yellow lights coming on. There were three colours, the green indicated All Clear and there was no enemy activity expected, the yellow light indicated a caution and that the warning had sounded and enemy aircraft was over the coast and approaching the Capital, The red of caused was for danger and indicated enemy aircraft virtually overhead. As the yellow lights came on, a loud groan went round the cinema and a large proportion of people including us left. Outside the evening sunshine was still just about there, but dusk was coming in. The siren had already stopped and it was very quite everywhere apart from the people who had just left the pictures and striding out down the road. There were no buses; these had probably stopped because of the impending raid, so Dad got us marching as fast as he could back home along Putney Bridge Road towards Wandsworth, with all of us using our eyes to scan the sky and our ears straining to hear the first sound of gunfire or the sound of aircraft. By the time we reach Wandsworth, which is a fair walk from Putney, we still hadn鈥檛 seen a bus, but also fortunately hadn鈥檛 seen or heard any enemy activity. We broke off through the back turnings to make a bit of a shortcut for home and I knew now we were not going to catch a bus, and we going to walk the whole way. It was now getting dark and searchlights were starting to pierce the night sky with an urgency and expectancy. The Alert was still in operation and so the enemy must have been still about. But I was by now not only fearful but also tired, and when we reach our front door very relieved. I remember that just about the time we arrived home the 鈥淎ll Clear鈥� sounded, but I don鈥檛 think we went to the pictures again in the evening, anyway not for at least a couple of years.

So it came quickly to the time of regularly using the air raid shelter at school and our own shelter in our cellar. Suddenly to be woken up at night, especially at the commencement of the night raids, and being told to dress quickly and hurry to the cellar, was to me very alarming. Especially seeing the searchlights already sweeping the night sky, and knowing that you had to get down two flights of stairs before you reached the relative safety of the shelter. The cellar was dank and still smelt of the coal that had once been kept there. Just Mum, Ron and I were, in the main, the only users of the cellar. The two people, who lived in the top part of the house, the man had gone into the Army and his wife was staying away at her Mothers. Dad seemed to come and go, spending some time with us, but mostly in the fire duty room over at the factory, and popping back occasionally to see how we were faring. Mostly he was on standby waiting for a fire call from his parent fire station at West Hill. The Sumberland fire crew, had been requisitioned, and were now under the direct control of the London Fire Brigade and available to be sent anywhere. It was in the cellar that I first heard the sound of German bomber aircraft overhead and the reverberating barrage of gunfire that met their approach and experiencing of the first shudder and crunch of bombs exploding. Although at this time, we were in late summer months, I felt cold in spite of a blanket around my shoulders. I feel certain this was because of fear. Here we came to recognise the sound differences between the Allied aircraft and the German bombers, whose heavy engine drone had an undulating throb, whereas our planes had a good steady rhythm. In these early bombing raids the German planes would drop sticks of bombs numbering around about eight bombs, the exact number I can not remember, but they would fall with a loud whistle. I believe these were called screaming bombs, but we could count them as they fell, and knowing how many more there was to come, and uncrossing our fingers when we knew the remaining bombs in the stick were falling beyond us.

Dad who by this time seemed to be in charge of everything over at the factory, had decided that it made no sense for the air shelters there to be standing empty at night. He decided to ask and obtained permission from Birmingham head office, for them to be used by those workers and their families who wanted to, and also by local resident families living close by. I feel the original idea for this came from Mum, who had decided that our cellar was not the place she wanted to be.

The Sumberland factory shelter system consisted of four air raid shelters, Green, Yellow, Blue and Orange which were interlinked around a command centre, known as the Squad shelter, with a fifth one, the Red Shelter, on it own at the other end of the factory. During the day, and when an air raid was in progress, it was from the Squad shelter that the factory workers received intruction to hurry to their designated shelter. This was given when advice that German aircraft had been sight by the plane spotters on the factory roof. Instructions to return to the factory floor after the all clear had sounded were issued in the same manner. The Squad was also the entertainment centre! It was from here the popular records of the day were played and the B.B.C鈥檚 programme 鈥淲orkers Playtime鈥� and the like was relayed over the factory Tannoy system.

We were given a corner in the Squad; I suppose you could say it was for the night time duration of the war. Decent mattresses were supplied from the works and it was all very warm and comfortable. We shared it with three or four other management families, and I guess it could have been called the officer鈥檚 quarters, or being up with 鈥淭he Jones鈥�, and it could be said we had moved up one rung on the social ladder. There were no calls for a classless society then. My bed was tucked into a four foot high recess, above which was a massive block of concrete that was the foundation to the supports for a large metal and wood conveyor that carried produced goods to the loading bays above. Each night before I went to sleep I would look up at this huge piece of concrete, and petrify myself with thought, as to the out come of a direct hit by a bomb above, and picturing this vast lump falling and obliterating me. The interconnection of the shelters were via small metal blast proof doors and I feel that the adults must have been sometimes pretty browned off with what must have seemed a constant caravan of children passing in and out of these doors and through various shelters. The atmosphere of each shelter varied. In some a continuous buzz of conversation ensued till quite late and many card schools became a regular habit. The local resident鈥檚 shelter I recall as the quietest and where everyone tried to settle down for the night at a reasonable time, and where the lights were dimmed early. It was in this shelter, when late roaming children were going through, and I was often with them, a voice would call after them 鈥淲hy don鈥檛 you kids get back to your own shelter鈥�.

It had been a glorious late summer September day and the sirens having sounded early; we were away quickly to the shelter. Nothing forewarned us and we could not possibly have known or realised at the time that this night would be one of the worst nights of our personal war and the start of nightly air raids. This was to be the start of the 鈥淟ondon Blitz鈥�, Saturday September 7th 1940.

Dad and the fire crew had already been ordered away, and they had left in the fire tender at 16.45 for Old Kent Road Fire Station where they were to stand by. We settled into our spot in the shelter for the long evening and night, but it was obvious by the barrage and commotion going on outside that it was turning into something a bit more than normal. There was more tension and worry going around the shelter occupants that night, than there was usually. It seemed like the early hours of the morning, but it was certainly sometime during the night, when word was coming through the shelters that London was all afire. Because there was a lull in the raid, people gradually filed out through the catacomb of shelters, me amongst them, to see what was going on. Coming out behind the main office block, we floundered, in the dark and in small groups, along a cobbled stone footpath to the corner of the building. As I turned the corner and looked out through the main gates, eastwards towards London, it appeared as if the whole World was about to come to an end. The sky was alight, from a deep red above to a cauldron of yellow fire behind the housetops that were a few hundred yards away. Everyone was awe-struck and little was being said. I overheard and remember the words well 鈥淭hey鈥檙e up there鈥�, obviously referring to the fire crew, but can not recall whether they were Mum鈥檚 words or those of a wife of another member of the crew.

The next morning around 9.30 am, Dad and the others all returned save and sound, although soaking wet and stained with soot. They had been all night in the thick of it, fighting fires in the Canada and Surrey Docks, where at one time they had had to avoid machine gun bullets from the planes above. They were out again that same night dealing with fires up town, and at this stage although only classified as auxiliary firemen were called away regularly to fight fires in many other parts of the Capital. It should also of course be remembered that they had essential day work in the factory that could not be neglected. Slumberland was now heavily into Government contracts, which didn鈥檛 only involve the making of beds for the military, but also the making of parachutes, emergency rubber water tanks, military webbing, to repairing R.A.F aircraft gantries, and many other types of war equipment.

During that first week of 鈥淭he Blitz鈥�, Dad was slightly injured whilst fighting a fire at Kingwood Road School, just off Fulham Palace Road. They had been fighting a blaze for about two and half hours, when a delayed action bomb exploded close by. The blast of which threw him and his colleague to the ground, causing the hose that they were manning to snake away well off the ground and coiling about dangerously, so fierce was the water thrust. The incident did not prevent him being in the factory the next day or reporting for duty the following night.

Nightly and for many weeks air raids were to continue and were unrelenting, but somehow our daily domestic lives went on, including having to attend school, with Ron now old enough to go. You got used to seeing in a road, sections of terraced houses now just a pile of debris, and roads suddenly becoming 鈥淣o entry鈥� because of extensive bomb damage, or even to having an unexploded one there. At the end of a street that had one of these, in the centre of the road, would be a red notice board stating 鈥淯nexploded Bomb- Keep Away 鈥�, with just a 鈥淪pecial鈥� constable or the like close by to make certain folk did stay clear.

East Hill Congregational Church was fire bombed on the 15th October, and in spite of the Slumberland鈥檚 fire crew being in attendance the church itself was gutted and sadly that original interior could now only be put to memory. On Tuesday 29th October, at 1.30, in the early hours, the Slumberland factory received a direct hit by a high explosive bomb and several incendiary bombs. The main bomb hit the top of a dividing brick wall and ricocheting into the factory workshop next us, rather than towards us. The wall gave us protection from the main blast and our shelter was only covered with light debris, but its exit was blocked. Because of the shelter system, there were other exits, so we were not trapped but we stayed where we were until morning. The fires that had been burning around the factory had been successfully put out, and Dad appeared with others, having cleared the entrance of debris, through the door at 7.30. I think his words were something like 鈥淭hat was close鈥�, and with that we scrambled out and trooped home for breakfast.

During November the intensity of the air raids slackened a little, although still severe, as Hitler鈥檚 bombers turned their attention to other British cities and for a period London was not the main target and we started to have longer intervals between raids. By now we had become toughened and very wide-awake to the dreadful weeks that we had just come through. There was no one to complain to, for Londoners at this time, it had to be a case of grin and bear it and just a matter of keeping your head down, and praying it was God鈥檚 Will that you would get through this. At that time it was difficult to see how we would, for it seemed as if Hitler might have been winning the war. Fortunately we had, Winston Churchill, who had the ability to install a 鈥淏ulldog Spirit鈥� into the people at this time

Soon after midnight, at around 1 am Saturday morning 16th November, West Hill Fire Station (88 W) received a direct hit from a high explosive bomb, and Slumberland fire tender was summoned to give immediate assistance. They spent the night helping to rescue survivors, but unfortunately six of their fellow A.F.S. comrades had perished in the explosion. The men had been in the rest room awaiting their order to proceed to a fire incident when the bomb struck. They hadn鈥檛 stood a chance, for in spite of diving under the billiard table. The bomb had exploded to close, just above their heads. Next day in school, one of the girls from my class was not in her desk. One of the firemen who had died had been her Father.

As we came close to Christmas that year, surprisingly and how we knew I cannot remember, but we learnt that Hitler was not to send his bombers to England on Christmas Day and indeed this is how it turned out. The Country was free of fear that one day and seemed to make the most of it. In our household, before our Christmas lunch, Dad with Sid Robertson had gone to West Hill fire station, which was again functioning, and had taken for the permanent station members a Christmas box on behalf of The Crown Bedding Company. After the four of us had had our Christmas Dinner, and during the afternoon, most of our relations arrived from Battersea and Clapham. How the arrangements had been made I shall never know, as there was no telephones within our family homes in those days, but we had a party that lasted all the rest of that day and until around six o/clock the next morning. Sometime during that morning after a short uncomfortable sleep in, varied uncomfortable chairs, they braced themselves, kids as well, against the freezing winter weather and our kinfolk walked the whole distance back home. So ended our short respite from the bombing, for before the New Year had arrived the air raids had begun again. On the 29th December a devastating fire bomb raid on London destroyed many famous buildings and churches, and killed over two thousand people. Since the start of the air raids, nearly twenty one thousand British civilians had been killed

It indeed was an extremely cold winter and the nightly preparation and walk to and from the shelter became mentally draining, especially for my Mother and we began to become a little indifferent to the uncertainties of the times. We had of course by this stage become very practised in preparation for air raids, and we had started to have the tendency not to go to the shelter until the air raid siren sounded. This was with the hope it wouldn鈥檛 go off that night, and we would get a restful night in our own beds. Although occasionally at first, and as the war progressed more regularly we did get to sleep in our beds. However this new practise led to many a time having to make a dash for the shelter, with the sound of gunfire and the drone of enemy bombers echoing in our ears. One icy cold, bright moon lit night in January we had indeed left it rather late, for while in Indian file we were traversing the planks of wood that lay across the frozen mud on the factory forecourt, the sound of gunfire was immediately overhead. I could hear the tingle of shrapnel as it hit the surrounding rooftops. Suddenly in front of Mum, a slither of shrapnel, around six inches in length pierced the plank we were on, only some six feet away, where it remained erect and shimmering silver in the moonlight. It had been a close shave.

One night in April 1941, Wednesday the 16th to be precise, Mum woke me up; saying a raid had started. Ron and I, by now slept in the ground floor bedroom that had been our parent鈥檚 room. We quickly dressed and hurried with her to the kitchen. The guns were already banging away outside, and the three of us got beneath our dining room draw-leaf table. Dad had earlier left and was on stand-by at the factory. Waking from a deep sleep and with frightening events taking place close to, is a very harrowing experience for anyone let alone a child, so it was not surprising that both Ron and I quickly wanted to wee, but in no way were we prepared to go out to the lavatory. Mum got out and got a child鈥檚 enamel chamber pot which in those days was affectionately known as a Jerry, and which both of us boys gratefully used. We stayed there for sometime, huddled together, and Dad鈥檚 popped in to see that we were all right and felt it was best if we stayed where we were for the time being. Not long after he left us there was a violent explosion, which was obviously a very close and large bomb. The windows blew in, and there were sounds of things smashing all around us. Our light went out and obviously the electricity had been put out of action. Mum had her torch with her, the customary necessity those days, but before she used it, she had observed in the darkness the glowing embers of our kitchen fire from the evening before. Realising the fire danger, she crawled from beneath the table and emptied the contents of the Jerry into the grate and extinguished them. What I didn鈥檛 know was that at this period Mum was over six months pregnant. Naturally as soon as she had ascertained everything was all right with us, her concern went to Dad who had only left moments before the explosion.

Dad after leaving us stopped to chat with the air raid warden, at the air raid post opposite our house. Suddenly they observed a parachute some hundred or so feet high and drifting above them and on along the road opposite. Their first thoughts were, that it was a German flyer, and they immediately gave chase but just before the parachute and its object below plunged into the roof tops of the houses in Geraldine Road they realised their mistake and turned and started to run as hard as they could. The bomb exploded and they were blown by the blast several yards back down the road with debris flying around them. It had been a large 1000lb parachute bomb. Fortunately both Dad and the warden were perfectly okay, and were able to join in with the first rescuers at the scene. The bomb had destroyed a complete block of houses and including our superb 3year old library, but tragically we said goodbye that night to seventeen civilians who had been friends and neighbours. One middle aged lady who I knew well by sight, had at the time that the bomb struck, just left her front gate to give her small white scotch terrier his late walk. Her body was found lodged on top of a telephone box at the bottom of Dault Road, over a hundred yards away.

The damage to our own house was not severe, but we lost all our windows in the blast. In our bedroom the glass French door had blown, and Ron鈥檚 bed which had been in a direct line was covered with broken glass and the wooden dividing doors alongside his bed was imbedded with fragments of glass. If Ron had been in the bed there was no doubt he would have been injured.

In writing this story it is not my intention to relate all the sadness and tragedy of what I saw and heard of during the war, but more to recall experiences that did not seem amusing at the time, but on reflection can now bring a smile. However before I progress somewhat more light-heartedly I must recall the disaster and destruction caused by a bomb that fell in Putney that left me with a lifetime memory of horror. It was first thing the next morning that we learnt of a high explosive bomb having scored a direct hit on a dance hall, and that two hundred, mainly military personnel had been killed. It would appear that it had been the only bomb to have fallen on Putney that night. And it had been felt at the time that the reason for this bomb to have been dropped was that a blackout curtain had accidentally been pulled aside to allow a shaft of light to escape skywards. A German bomber having dropped its main payload further back into London dropped its one remaining bomb in the direction of this stark beam of light. I have to admit it was childlike morbid curiosity that led me with two or three other friends to walk to Putney to see the destruction. By the time we got there the bomb scene had been vastly tidied up, but the fire service and Civil Defence were still in attendance and hosepipes and other rescue paraphernalia littered the scene. The smell of dust, dirty water, the cabbagey smell of gas, a whole concoction of smells that in those days you associated with newly destroyed buildings, hung around the area. To one side lay a large pile of service uniform items, mainly greatcoats, which probably would have been taken from what would have been the cloakroom?

We watched for a time the work going on which was one of making the site safe and clearing up the fringe rubble but eventually decided to go down to the river which was close by. The tide was out and we meandered along the foreshore, just near to the starting point of the 鈥淯niversity Boat Race鈥�. There were always something left behind by the ebbing tide, to take the interest of youngsters. This morning the Thames had left behind something dreadful. Several sea gulls, which had been scavenging around, took off as we arrived at the spot to see what had been their interest. Lying close to the water's edge were what appeared to be two or three large pieces of flesh that was now white and bloodless through their immersion in river water. Our small group stood around one of the pieces of flesh, which someone prodded it with a stick, and another of us put a toe into, trying to make out what it was. It was not immediate, but suddenly in a flash we all realised what we were looking at were pieces of human bodies. The bomb blast had carried them into the river. Whereas all of the dead and injured had been removed and anything horrific, had been taken away from the bombsite and the surrounding area, the River Thames had concealed anything that had fallen into it until it was at low tide. We children had discovered these remains that had gone unnoticed and we did no more than to depart the vicinity quickly and with the horror at what we had discovered. We did not report what we had found, I think we were to young and not proficient enough to have considered doing that, but I should imagine, my friends of that day, as like myself, would carry that macabre image for the rest of their lives.

Fierce and regular day and night raids were to continue throughout the next months, indeed all the way through the spring. During one period of non stop nightly raids, on one of Dad鈥檚 rare nights off duty it was arranged that a Slumberland delivery lorry should be used to take a group of those people who wished to, out of London for the night into the country. An opportunity to get away from the continuos air attacks and to experience a restful night or that was the idea. Of course our little family was part of the group, and in fact Ron and I were the only children who went, apart from the little two year old Iris Robertson. The rest of the party was made up, in the main some factory girls and a few men who up till then had not been called up into the forces. There was a total of some twenty-six of us and it was a happy go lucky band. Mum, Dad, Ron and I were to share the Luton, that is the part of the van that protrudes over the driver鈥檚 cabin, and up there the four of us were to sleep, wrapped in our own blankets and on a double mattress from the factory.

The lorry travelled out through West London, with its rear doors completely open, and with the crowd inside having a good singsong. Arriving in High Wycombe, it pulled into a pub car park and this was to be our resting-place for the night. It didn鈥檛 take long for all the adults to disappear into the pub, but for Ron and I it was a question of watching the open end of the van going from daylight to twilight and eventual blackness. A visit from Dad a couple of times with lemonade and a packet of Smith鈥檚 Crisps broke our boredom. Eventually, and after I had just dropped off to sleep the others started to return amidst lots of subdued laughing and noisy attempts to get up into the lorry. Of course I was now very much awake again, and like the others got very little sleep that night, what with the talking and giggling that went on. So much for a restful night away from the bombs! Their enjoyment though did indicate having this short break had had a benefit, but ironically the Luftwaffe hadn鈥檛 bomb London that night, so everyone would have achieved a longer sleep at home.

Even in this bad year of 1941 Dad managed to take us away for a short holiday in the early part of the summer. We must have travelled by Southern Railway, as I can remember leaving the train at Chichester and being thrilled at the seeing the wooden level crossing gates being opened by hand and letting the local bus through. The bus we were to catch to East Wittering. We boarded the bus, together with a large crate of chickens that was to be dropped off at a farm along the route. We travelled some six or so miles before getting off at a small parade of shops in Wittering, and this was about half way round the bus鈥檚 circular route back to Chichester.

East Wittering at this time was a small seaside village made up of several modest bungalows, a few shops and a couple of pubs. Through a friend of a friend arrangements had been made for us to stay in one of these bungalows, and 鈥淚wanasta鈥� we found in the second lane from the seafront, one of a pot pourri group of unpretentious bungalows. A few were converted railway carriages, some were no more than shacks, and others had been nicely built, but with whatever material had been available at the time. They had all been built around the late 1920鈥檚 apart from a couple that had been built in the 30鈥檚 and were modern and quite 鈥淎rt Deco鈥� and a sign of future times for the area. However at this war time period, the immediate locality was very desolate with most of the properties without residents. Some of the local shops were closed for the duration, but the local bakery had remained open, and the smells that issued from there had been delectable. 鈥淚wanasta鈥� was a quaint and reasonably built wooden construction with three bedrooms, and a kitchen leading directly on to the sitting room which in turn lead out to a veranda. There was a garden from which, via a little wooden bridge, you could get to a small field. All in all another new adventure and another found paradise.

The property next door was one of the modern places and had a roof terrace and was also uninhabited, so we all used its outside staircase and sunbathed on the roof. From there I could see the sea, which looked magnificent with the sun shining on it. From the bungalow the sea and the beach were no farther than a couple of hundred yards, across the field, then across the beach road to the beach access between the sea front properties, but that was it, no longer could one get to the beach. The Army had confiscated the land and property on the front. I can remember, with Ron, going as near as we could and up to the barbed wire, peering between two bungalows. Bungalows with their windows broken and their doors off and with sand blown by the wind in piles up the side of the walls and into the open doorways, that had once someone鈥檚 home, now desolate and uncared for. Looking through the gap we could see further barb wire and metal framework, which were tank traps, and just a little further the waves breaking on the shingle beach. So near, yet so far and how we felt cheated. Suddenly into the gap strode a uniformed guard, complete with tin hat and rifle. He stopped and peered out to sea. That was it, we had had enough, feeling that we were likely to be arrested if seen and caught. We made a rapid retreat and I do not think we went anywhere near that beach road again during that holiday.

One night, after we had all gone to bed, we heard the sound of aircraft and the noise of distant gunfire. Getting up, we watched from the veranda a heavy air raid on Portsmouth, which we could see at a distance across the field behind us. The searchlights were stabbing the night sky, waving back and forth. The flashing from the gunfire and the exploding bombs was electrifying and on this occasion not at all frightening, because I was watching the whole event quite detached from the affair. I knew that in this instance we were not involved or vulnerable. This holiday was to be the first of several to 鈥淚wanasta鈥�, throughout the forties and the fifties, but I never ever again saw East Wittering in the guise it was at this period of time.

On July 2nd 1941, my sister was born at home and so completed our family of five. She seemed to arrive in a very large cardboard box, but that had turned out to contain her gas mask, one that would envelop her completely. Much discussion took place to what she should be called, and in this I seemed to have had some fringe involvement, for it had appeared to me that a conclusion had been made on what her name was to be. I readily carried the news far and wide to teachers, neighbours and to anyone who ask if I was pleased to have a new baby sister, and to what was her name. To my surprise and certain amount of rebuff I discovered my parents had taken no decision yet and that I had jumped the gun in naming my sister Maureen. However because of my wide establishment of the tidings, and to save mild embarrassment and explanation, my sister became Maureen Rose, known today as Mo. If I hadn鈥檛 have interfered she most likely would have been named Wendy, so she can thank me for more than likely becoming known as Windy Rose?

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