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The map graphic (above) shows my local part of East Acton, West London, during the war. Some principal locations, mentioned in various stories entered by me in the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Peoples War site, are indicated by an orange coloured dot and number. Locations listed below:

(1) '18 The Green': The Brooks family, my home with an Anderson Shelter. (2) '16 Taylors Green': The Ames family, our relatives (grandparents , aunts and cousin), who had no Anderson or Morrison shelter (my grandmother Tilly Ames refused to have them). (3) ’15 The Green’: Mr. Cuddiford, our local ARP Warden, who was invaluable. (4) A Pillbox disguised as a 'Coal Office'. It was guarding the Brunel Road entrance to the Westway Industrial Estate. A Static Water Tank (EWS) was later put beside it.

(5) The Air Raid Siren (known locally as ‘Moaning Minnie’) on a very tall post beside the Central Line/Great Western Railway Bridge over Old Oak Common Lane, at the end of Wulfstan Street. (6) A Pillbox disguised as a 'Police Telephone Box with blast protection' on the corner of The Fairway and Old Oak Common Lane. (7) Static Water Tank (EWS) beside the Electricity Sub Station and blocking the road, at the end of St. Andrews Road.

(8) The ‘Pig Bin’: this was wartime's smelliest campaign and was avoided by pedestrians, especially on hot days! The remaining grassed area of The Green was turned over to 'Dig for Victory' allotments; we children wouldn’t get to play on it for many years.

AIR RAIDS: (9) The Public Air Raid Shelter on The Green: a bomb struck at this point damaging the shelter, our house and many others. My aunt Audrey Ames, on leave from the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, survived relatively unscathed in the collapsed other half of the shelter. (10) Four houses on Taylors Green destroyed in the February 1944 raid, just yards from the Ames family home, which was damaged. (11) The Westway Industrial Estate and adjacent houses severely damaged in February 1944 raid. See story EAST ACTON BLITZED: FEBRUARY 1944.

(12) My school, John Perryn School, with Air Raid Shelters under the central hall. A parachute Oil Bomb snagged on the building at this point in 1940, it was safely defused. (13) In 1940 bomb impact damaged the bridge metal side panels, tearing and bending them out, but it failed to detonate. (14) The approximate position of a very early V1 Doodlebug (flying bomb) traveling north, seen from our back garden at (1) in mid-June 1944. This was before their existence was made public; we thought it was one of our aircraft in trouble.

DAMAGE Brooks home (1) and Ames home (2): most windows broken; most ceilings down; many roof slates broken; foundations and damp-proof course breached; plus Brooks home (1): Incendiary bombs - house and front garden.

Postscript: one subtle scar from the war years re-appears during very dry summers — yellowing grass clearly marks the location of the public air raid shelter on The Green, its concrete remains obviously still lurking below the surface.

Revised extract from ‘A Sheltered Childhood ~ Wartime Family Memories of an East Acton Child’

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