大象传媒

This contribution to WW2 People's War website was received by the Action Desk at 大象传媒 Radio Norfolk, with the permission and on behalf of Robert Leighton and submitted to the website by a volunteer.

When war was declared in September 1939 I was two years old. My family left the East End of London during the 鈥減honey war鈥� and went to Portsmouth, and my first memory is of an Anderson shelter being built in my cousin鈥檚 garden there. He and I used the metal sections as slides while it was under construction and I tried to help my father dig the hole, though I can鈥檛 have been much help.

Dad was called up into the army 鈥� the Royal Engineers. My sister was born in 1940. The family felt so isolated in Portsmouth that we moved back to the East End 鈥� out of the frying pan into the fire.

We moved into number 7 Forest Road in Forest Gate, E7, and that was when the blitz started. We shared the house with Sally, a friend of my mother鈥檚. It was common practice for two women whose husbands were away to share a house and give each other support. We hadn鈥檛 been there long when one night an incendiary bomb hit us. I, having no sense of danger, thought this very exciting. It burnt a hole through the ceiling but didn鈥檛 do a lot of damage. I remember the ARP men running in with buckets of water and buckets of sand. At the age of four I thought it quite fun being woken up to go down to the bomb shelters.

Then mother decided to move to 55 Kitchener Road, nearer to West Ham. Quite why she wanted to move nearer to the docks I don鈥檛 know, but perhaps it had something to do with the anti-aircraft battery that had been erected near the first house.

We shared the Kitchener Road house with my aunt. I can remember her receiving a telegram saying my uncle was missing in action, and crying. About three months later she heard that he was still alive. He had been taken prisoner at Dunkirk.

I was never evacuated, but all my friends were. At one time I was the only boy in the road, and I had a fairly lonely time until the others began to drift back. I did what all boys did then 鈥� went round collecting shrapnel. I had a big pile of it in the backyard. In summer and autumn I used to watch the dogfights over London, ignoring my mother鈥檚 pleas to come inside. I also, as all boys did, climbed around in bombed houses, swinging on beams and throwing bricks through windows, until a policeman dragged me back home by the ear. Dad was based at High Wickham with the R.E., so sometimes he was able to come home for weekends and one of my greatest joys in life was to play with his rifle.

I remember seeing an overturned trolley bus in Grange Road. I remember looking out of the window one night and seeing a German bomber caught in the crossbeam of two searchlights. There was an explosion, and a huge flash, just like the sun coming up. One minute he was there, the next he was gone. The searchlights went off, and then came on again to search for someone else. Towards the end of the war I remember the troops marching down to the docks to go over to Normandy.

I had to change schools because my school in Upton Lane was bombed out. It was hit by a V2. I was quite pleased at the time, because it meant I had a day off school. It was very sad really, as the school had been full of refugees from a raid the night before, and they copped it.

Not long after that a bomb in our road demolished twenty houses, killing about thirty people. The rocket landed about fifty yards from our house, which was badly damaged - roof blown off, front door halfway up the stairs, windows blown out. I was in bed and got a minor cut from flying glass. My aunt was undressing for bed beside the fireplace. The blast blew all the soot down the chimney and she emerged covered in soot like a black-and-white minstrel. My friend lived in the house where the rocket landed. His mother had just had a baby girl. The blast blew the baby, wrapped in a blanket, out into the street, where she was rescued, screaming but unhurt, by neighbours. Both parents were killed. The neighbours took the baby and her brother, my friend, in.

Mother carried on working part-time throughout the war. She was a dressmaker, and cycled into London twice a week to collected material. Modern historians have claimed that there was panic in the East End during the blitz but I can honestly say I don鈥檛 recall any panic from my mother, aunt or neighbours. Their only comment was 鈥淗itler鈥檚 dishing it out to us, we鈥檒l dish it out ten times harder.鈥�

I was an avid listener to the radio, and I remember saying to my mother, 鈥淲hat are they going to do for news when the war鈥檚 over?鈥� She said they鈥檇 talk about ordinary things. I thought that sounded pretty dull.

Towards the end of he war the family had a close shave. Every second weekend we stayed with my mother鈥檚 sister in Hornsea, and on alternate weekends she stayed with us. One weekend when she was with us a rocket hit her house in Hornsea. If the weekends had been reversed we would all have been bombed.

I don鈥檛 remember ever being hungry. I quite liked all the wartime food 鈥� powdered egg, powdered milk, spam, and the orange juice my mother got when my sister was born. Occasionally my mother took us to a British Restaurant as a treat. There was one in Forest Gate, with long benches under a railway arch. I thought I鈥檇 dined at the Ritz! When Dad came home for weekends he鈥檇 sometimes bring me a Mars Bar. When the Americans arrived we kids scrounged off them 鈥� 鈥淕ot any gum, chum? Got any sweets, mister?鈥� Even our own troops gave us some. By then people were returning from evacuation, so I had my friends back again. Once the war was over all the bombsites became our playgrounds. Some of them were there for ten years.

There was a big party in the street on VE day. Builders built a big stage, even though half the street was gone.

We were very lucky, really. None of our family was killed, and I didn鈥檛 lose any friends. My uncle was released and came home, the war ended, and things slowed down and returned to normal. Life became a bit boring after that.

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