大象传媒

Dad was employed at Carter Paterson鈥檚 in Enfield where they were building Halifax bombers. He was exempt war as he was 50 years old but was on work of national importance. Mum used to walk me to school everyday to Hazelwood Lane infants school. When I was in the juniors I was allowed to go on my own. But now the London blitz was in full swing. My sister and I would sleep under the stairs, the safest place in a Victorian building . During the blitz school time was 10am-2pm and we had to wait half-an-hour after the all-clear. If we could make it to the end of Lightcliff Road and could not see the school and the siren went again we used to go home. We had a landmine drop at the end of our road and in the morning we found all the net curtains had been sucked through the sash-frames. We did have a bomb drop opposite our house and the following morning I picked up some massive pieces of shrapnel which as kids we always took down to the salvage depot near the cinema. Of an evening dad and I would stand in the garden. I had a child鈥檚 tin-hat on and dad had the hub-cap of a Ford V8 pilot car on his head. Towards the end of the war I met dad off the bus from work and as we were walking along dad saw a flash and he threw me and himself to the ground and put his box of fire wood in front of us, an old gramophone case. We then heard the shards of glass hitting the case. We think it was a V2.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.