大象传媒

I was born in 1937 and so have some memories of the war. During the war I with Father Ben Mother Lillian and Brother Ray in Erith Road Bexleyheath Kent and my Father worked as an electrician on the trolley buses in the depot opposite our house

MY First Memory was one morning coming into the house which was 3 floors high from the air raid shelter at the end of a very long garden (there is now 3 rows of houses a road and gardens in the same space as our house and garden took) was going up stairs and finding a kerbstone on the second floor landing. A bomb had landed on the pavement outside the bus depot and picked up and thrown this kerbstone across the road and over the house through the attic and third floor and finished up on the second floor.

The next memory is 29th June 1944 when my Brother myself and a lodger were sleeping in the Anderson air raid shelter again and mum and dad sleeping under the stairs in the house and I believe it was about 3 am when a doodle bug (V1 self powered bomb ) came down slap in the middle of the bus depot luckily the depot was packed full with buses at that time of the morning, my mother was heavily pregnant at that time and in the morning when people rallied round to see what they could do to help my mother and father was helped out of the house and down to the shelter where she refused to leave even though she had that baby our sister Eileen at about 11am.

Early in the morning when the bus crews came on duty and found that there were no buses to take out a clippie (bus conductress) Betty Holmes as we know her came over to see if she could do anything to help and she cared a great and helped our mum deal both with and during and after the birth of Eileen Betty tells us that my brother and I stood at what was left of the front gate telling everybody that we had a new sister and Betty is still alive and is still a very good friend of the family

After the very extensive damage to the front of the house was repaired my next memory was we had a very nice sideboard that at the time of the doodle bug was up against the front window and was very badly scratched and Dad French polished it and as he was putting on the last coat of polish some one opened the door and ruined the whole job I believe that he was NOT amused

I also remember being told that Dad used to stand outside watching the dog fights between the planes and Mum keep telling him to come indoors but his attitude was well if its got my name on it it doesn't matter where I am it's going to get me this so I understand was built up when he was one of the Old Contemptables in 1914

Also somewhere in there is a memory of being on the front seat of the top deck of a trolley bus and going down West Hill Dartford and seeing the Singer sowing machine sign outside a shop at the bottom of the hill. We still have that sowing machine as my mum willed it to my wife Kath.

The next memory was we had moved from Bexleyheath to Hawthorn Road Dartford and sweet rationing had ended and Dad gave us sixpence each to go down and buy ourselves some sweets and what a job that was there were so many to choose from that we could have and also sixpence in those days was an awful lot of money.

My wife Kathleen was born in 1938 and she has two main memories one is they were in the air raid shelter down the road and her dad went up to the house to get the cocoa and was walking back with it when a bomb went off nearby and when he got back to the shelter all he had was 4 mug handles and 1 jug handle then she鈥檇 been sent to the shops to get something and a big bomber came over and she just stood there paralysed until someone came and took her to mum.

Some of her most enjoyable memories are with her Father and Grandfather with the horse and cart and going to get the horses re-shoed

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