大象传媒

I was far too young to take an active part in the war, but I was old enough to be an interested spectator, as I was 5 years old during the Battle of Britain.

In the early stages of the war, the family of our parents and 4 kids (me being the youngest)used to get under the stairs when an air raid was on,and this developed into us all sleeping in the dining room, under a very sustantial table.

At this time, I managed to get whooping cough, and I distinctly remember jumping up onto the table during a bad bout of coughing, with my head over a small enamelled bowl which was kept on the table as a receptacle for me.

I obviously survived that experience, and the next phase of our life was when we had an Anderson air raid shelter installed in the back garden, which, in case anybody does not know, was made of heavy-duty corrugated and galvanised steel, and was sunk into the ground about 3-4 feet, and the soil was then heaped up on the top. We all slept down there during the Battle of Britain, which was a very interesting time for a small boy, who found it rather exciting to watch squadrons of German bombers flying over, caught in a battery of searchlights, and with anti-aircraft shells exploding around them.

Our house suffered from having all the windows shattered, and the ceilings were brought down, but some of this was due to a battery of artillery which was sited only about a quarter of a mile away. There were a number of bombs dropped close to us, the nearest explosive one being about 200yards away, behind another house,which took most of the blast and was badly damaged.
There were lesser bombs (incendiaries occasionally dropped in the road outside, but none of them started any serious fires in our area.

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