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This story was submitted to the People’s War website by Maggie Nairn from the Littlehampton Learning Shop and has been added to the website on behalf of Lewis with his permission, who fully understand the site’s terms and conditions.

Lewis’s Evacuation

It was the beginning of the Battle of Britain and I was aged about 7 years. I was evacuated from Streatham to Mitcham approximately 10 miles away. I was staying with my parents’ friends and they had a young lad called Tommy Parker. We watched the first air battle and Tommy Parker’s father was a travelling salesman. He brought home one evening a whole load of wood, planed to an inch square and I was talking to Tommy and we said to each other ‘We don’t like this here’ so with that we raided this pile of wood and proceeded to build our own airplane and to take off and fly away!

A few days later, we were together at night with the rest of the family in the Anderson Shelter during an air raid, and two HE bombs were dropped on the house opposite to ours. There was a ‘gazunder’ which was full and with the vibration it broke and I got wet feet!

Lewis

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