大象传媒

There wasn't very much in the way of Air-Raids on London in 1940, until the Sirens sounded the Alert one Saturday afternoon early in September, just after our mid-day meal.
It was a lovely sunny day without a cloud in the sky. Dad was in the shop and brother John was out on his paper-round.
Almost immediately, we heard the sound of AA guns and the throb of heavy aircraft engines.
My mother and the four younger children went down into the Anderson Shelter, but brother Percy and I stayed in the garden to watch the action. Oblivious of the danger from shrapnel, we climbed on the garden wall to get a better view.
This was my first experience of a big daylight Air-Raid, and at first it was very exciting.
I was far too young and naive to realise that the germans were trying to kill us, but by the time Sunday morning came I was a little wiser.
The sky above us was full of black planes and puffs of smoke from exploding AA shells. All the guns in Southwark Park must have been firing together, the noise was deafening.
Suddenly, the gunfire stopped and we could see the sunlight flashing on our Fighter-Planes making complicated patterns with their vapour trails, as they weaved in and out of the german bomber formations.
All hell was let loose when the bombs started falling, they whistled as they came down and exploded with a noise like a thunderclap. We watched, fascinated, as a wall of flames and black smoke rose to the heavens from the burning Docks, and the once blue sky went black, then became more lurid than the most spectacular sunset as the flames rose higher, I can still visualise it even now. The sudden change from blue sky and sunshine was so dramatic. We could no longer see the planes, just an occasional glimpse, but we could hear them alright.
The AA guns started up again, Bombs were dropping all around us, and we saw a burning Barrage Balloon come down through the smoke.
Really frightened now, we made a dive off the wall into the shelter, and sister Iris still remembers us tumbling in on top of them.
Surrey Commercial Docks, the largest terminal for timber imports in the Port of London was well alight, it seemed to be Jerry's main target, and only strays came anywhere near to us at first.
Then came an extra loud bang and a crump, followed by the sound of breaking glass and slates falling.
The Shelter rocked, and I thought we'd had it, but when the dust settled, we were OK.
A stick of bombs had fallen at the bottom of the road near South Bermondsy Station fracturing a gas main. One bomb had gone clean through the railway arch across Rotherhithe New Road and landed in the roadway, but didn't explode.
With nothing to do, as we were unprepared for long periods in the shelter, we just huddled together listening to the infernal racket for what seemed ages, we were all frightened, especially the girls, but I tried not to show it. At last it became quiet, then the All-Clear sounded and we went indoors. The raid had gone on for about three hours, which seemed forever.
I felt chastened now after all my bravado, and fearful of what was to come.
Outside, clouds of smoke were still rising into the air from the burning docks and other buildings. A few small bits of debris littered the normally busy road and it was very quiet, just like a Sunday.
Mum was worried about my eldest brother John, who was still out on his paper round. He worked all day on Saturdays, as it was cash-collection day, and she hoped he'd taken cover and was safe. Then he suddenly walked into the shop. He said he'd been on his way back to the Paper-shop when the bombing started, and had spent the afternoon sheltering under the counter in the local Cobbler's Workshop. When the worst was over, he tried to make his way back home, but the wardens had cordoned off the road because of the UXB.
They wouldn't let him through no matter how much he argued that he lived in Galleywall Road, so he had to make a big detour round the back streets, and eventually made it home where he banged fruitlessly on the front door. Nobody heard him, we were still all down the shelter, so he went back to the paper shop round the corner and waited for the all-clear.
While I was in the shop helping Dad to clear up, an ARP Warden came in and told Dad that all the people in the road were being evacuated because of the danger of the UXB and fire from the gas-leak.
He said we had to go round to Keetons Road School, which had been set up as a Rest-Centre.
I clearly remember my Dad saying:
"We're not going anywhere! We've got our own Shelter in the garden and if we're going to die, we'll all go together down there."
The Warden got a bit stroppy, but he didn't get anywhere with Dad once he'd made up his mind, so we stayed put.
After tea, we got ready to go down the Shelter for the night, and when darkness fell, the Air-Raid Sirens sounded again.
As the wailing stopped, the air was filled with the sound of the german bombers. Their engines had a peculiar throbbing noise which I came to dread, and will never forget.
For a while, my brothers and I stayed in the garden watching the Searchlights criss-crossing in the sky and the AA Shells bursting.
I put on a brave face, but the novelty was wearing off, and I felt really frightened.
I couldn't help thinking of what Dad had said to the Warden, and wondered if I'd see morning again.
The whole sky was lit up again with the red glow from burning buildings as well as the burning docks, which were hit again. The flames reflected on the windows of the school and lit up the walls of the huge cold-store behind, just a couple of hundred yards from us. I knew it must make a good target.
Then the bombs came closer and we ran for the shelter.
The din was terrific, and jerry kept it up all night. The bombers kept coming over, wave after wave. I didn't remember getting any sleep, though I must have had some.
Sometime during the night, I was lying there squeezed between my brothers, half asleep, when there was a terrific rushing noise of something passing over us, followed by an extra loud explosion.
The Shelter seemed to lift out of the ground and fall back again.
I remember hearing my mothers voice quietly saying to someone: "Have faith!" and I've used those words myself in times of trouble ever since.
We aferwards learned that jerry had fired an Aerial-Torpedo, probably aimed at the Cold Store.
It must have passed right over our Shelter as it went on to demolish the Palace Cinema, just up the road.
Luckily for us, nothing came closer that night, although the House and Shop suffered a bit more damage by blast.
On Sunday morning, a schoolmate named Billy knocked at the door to see me. His family had also stayed the night in their Anderson Shelter.
Incidentally, Billy was later evacuated To Devon and billeted on a Farm. He liked the life so much that he stayed on when he left school and went to work for the Farmer.
Later, he married one of the Farmer's Daughters and settled there permanently, so he definitely fell on his feet as he deserved.
Billy came from a big family. His Dad was a Docker and his Mother was a very large lady who went out to work. I was a bit in awe of her as she was the first Lady I ever saw wearing trousers, a rarity before the war.
Billy wanted me to go for a walk with him to look at the bomb damage, I still felt sleepy but in the end I agreed.
The roads were open, but there was no traffic or people about, and no buses running. The uxb was gone, and the gas-main had been made safe.
First we went to look at the railway arch, I could see daylight through a big round hole when I looked up from underneath, the bomb must have struck between the sets of railway lines and gone clean through to the road.
My brother Percy used to do an evening paper-round for a small shop a few hundred yards down the road from this arch.
After the afternoon raid, he felt he had to go and do his job, so he went off after tea as usual. He told me that nobody challenged him as he went round under the arch into Rotherhithe New Road, and he actually saw the bomb-disposal men working on the bomb which was lying on it's side in the road. He said it just looked like a big cylinder. No-one took any notice of him as he passed the barrier and he got to the shop OK.
The poor old Palace Cinema where I had spent many a Saturday morning at the "Mickey Mouse Club", was no more, just parts of the walls standing over a heap of rubble, with most of the roof, almost in one piece, lying in the side-road alongside it. The Palace was small for a Cinema, and was probably something else originally, as it actually had windows high in the side walls. The Usherettes used to close the curtains with long cords when the show was about to start.
Only the wide marble steps, which led up to the vestibule from the main road were still intact, and there they remained throughout the war.
The site was later turned into a big water-tank, one of hundreds erected all over London as an Emergency Water Supply for the Fire Service.
From the ruins of the Palace, I looked across the road and saw the tall Clocktower of Peek-Freans biscuit factory in it's usual place above and behind the shops and buildings opposite, it was still intact and showing the time.This Clocktower was a familiar landmark in Bermondsey, it survived the war, and has only disappeared in recent years.
After seeing the remains of the Palace, we thought we'd go round to Keetons Road School to see if anyone we knew was in there, and being curious, to see what a Rest-Centre was like.
The morning sky was dull and grey in contrast to the blue sky of yesterday before the raid, and there was an eerie silence in the deserted Streets as we made our way over pavements littered with broken glass and debris.
Most houses had their windows blown out, with curtains flapping in the slight breeze.
As we got closer,we heard the faint sound of machinery, but didn't see a soul until we rounded the corner into Keetons Road where we were met with a scene of devastation.
The big school wasn't there anymore, just a few bits of wall and great heaps of rubble with clouds of dust rising from the activity of the Rescue Squads with their gear and lorries.
A Rescue Worker stopped us getting any closer, and turned us away. We were horrified, the school had obviously suffered a direct hit when full of people.
We afterwards learned that close to 400 people had been killed there, some of them our neighbours and schoolmates, but mostly they were people who'd been evacuated by coach from the council estates close to Surrey Docks, mostly blocks of flats in the Redriff Road area, which was known locally as "round town". Many dockers and their families lived there
Luckily for us, our family weren't with them that night, thanks to our Dad, but I didn't feel any joy at the time, just shock.
I remember a bit of banter Percy and I had with a lady and her little boy who lived in the railway flats near the arch when they came into the shop on Saturday morning.
Her husband was away in the army, and
she was expecting him home on leave soon.
I'd waved to them as they walked past the shop with a few others that afternoon after the raid. They must have been on their way to Keetons Road School. I never saw them again, they both died in there.
My feelings of sadness and foreboding deepened as Billy and I walked home in silence.
That Saturday was the start of the Blitz, and London took a pounding every night till late Spring in 1941, when it quietened down except for sporadic raids.
After a few days, our home got a bit more blasted and all the upstairs ceilings were down. We were all feeling the strain of sleepless nights by then so Dad took us over to Shepherds Bush to stay with our Grandparents. Mum and Dad thought we'd get a respite as so far, they'd escaped being bombed on that side of London, but jerry followed us over, and a few nights later, some bombs fell close by causing blast damage to the house and an unexploded bomb landed in the road outside.
The ARP People took us to the Gainsborough Film Studios in Lime Grove, which I believe was later turned into the 大象传媒 Television Theatre.
The Cellar beneath the Building, where the scenery was stored, was now a temporary Rest-Centre.
We stayed there for a few days until they moved us to a local School, which was a proper Rest-Centre for bombed-out People.
I'd felt safer in the Scenery-Cellar, but in the School it was like being on holiday.
It was a big place, with hundreds of people, and there was always something going on, with Variety Shows and Sing-Songs every evening.
A few months before, I'd gone to see the Walt Disney Film of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" at a Cinema near home.
This was the first full length Colour-Film I'd ever seen, and I liked it very much, so when I found that "Pinnochio" was showing at the Empire Cinema on Shepherds Bush Green, I mobilised my pennies with the aid of Mum, and went to see it one afternoon.
The Air-Raid Sirens went off halfway through the film, and the warning was flashed on the screen, but the show carried on and no-one left the Theatre.
In Wartime, London was divided into zones by the cinema chains, and the North-West got the new films a couple of weeks before us lowly souls who lived South of the Thames, so I was able to tell my friends all about the film when I got home to Bermondsey.
Dad had gone back there on his own to look after the Shop, and we were glad when he came over and said that we could go back home. The shop had been patched up by the bomb-damage People.
Gran and Grandad were also able to return home, as the UXB was gone, and their house had been patched up too.
It doesn't seem possible when I think about it now, but as brother John reminded me recently, he used to get up at four a.m. every morning and cycle all the way to Bermondsey to do his paper round while we were at Shepherds Bush.
Back in Bermondsey, life was a bit strange.
There were no more big daylight Air-Raids.The Battle of Britain had been won by the RAF, and I think Herman had found that he lost too many Heinkels to our Spitfires and Hurricanes in the daytime for comfort.
However, every evening, not long after dark, "Moaning Minnie" would sound, and everyone took cover.
People without Shelters at home would have their own places, with bunks, in one of the Public Shelters or, down on one of the Tube Stations if they lived nearby.
It just became the norm to sleep in the Shelter every night, and it was business as usual in the daytime.
We were getting used to the Blitz by now, and learning to take things in our stride. the heavy air-raids went on nightly until late Spring in 1941, but I wasn't destined to see it all as I was evacuated once more,
so were Percy and my two sisters who went to Exeter. Brother John stayed at home as he'd left school and got a job with the GPO as a Telegram-Boy, but he only lasted there about six months, he told me that he found the job too distressing. Almost every telegram he delivered was from the War-Office announcing the death of a serviceman.
People used to dread the sight of a Telegram-Boy cycling down their street, John says it was the most unpleasant job he's ever had in his life.
To be continued.

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