大象传媒

One day, walking back to Cherry Hinton with several other children, we were terrified to see a German plane flying so low above us that we could see the face of the pilot. We instantly threw ourselves into the ditch that lined the pathway thinking we might be bombed or machine gunned. But the plane flew off and nothing happened to us apart from some mudded clothing. This was one of the happiest periods of my life and I hated to leave it as I had to after a time, when
we were moved, I do not recall why, from Hill Farm to a house owned by a family called Tomlinson, still in Cherry Hinton, somewhere on the road to Newmarket not far from an Asylum; may be the family warted me to be with one of my nephews who was there already. It was not a very happy move for me and the only long term benefit that I obtained was having to assist with the housework and cooking...even to making jam. The head of the house was a cook, working at the asylum that, on one or two occasions, I had to take him a message from his wife.
The asylum was a truly frightening old Victorian castellated building and its approach necessitated a long walk to the main door. From the windows high on either side it was possible to catch a glimpse of some really pitiful, yet frightening inmates gesticulating, sometimes obscenely or so it seemed to us. I never actually went into the place and was not too keen to do so.

There was a dog in our household that proved to be a champion rat catcher and we often went into the fields where he would set to digging out any that he scented from the hedgerow holes. On one occasion, when we had a visit from two of my sisters and my mother, we took a walk with the dog
and as was usual, he smelt something and started to dig catching the interest of the company.

Suddenly they saw the dog uncover something looking like a rope which proved to be a rat's tail which, when grabbed and pulled by the dog; out emerged a rat squealing and biting at its tormenter. There was a moment of shock but within seconds my mother and sisters were no more
than three screaming small clouds of dust on the horizon. At times when the stacked cereal crops were threshed the village men, boys and their dogs were
kept busy around the stacks killing the rats fleeing in all directions. Not a pretty sight but we enjoyed it just the same.

During that period of the Blitz on London we were able to see with the coming of evening, looking towards London, a horizon glowing a vivid red from the burning of the City, our homes on fire.

We later moved back to London, in time for more night after night, bombing. This led to a second evacuation, some time in 1942, to a small town in Oxfordshire called Abingdon where we were billeted in the home of a woman whose husband was in the forces. Her son, an only child, was
her pride, joy and love; a love not extended to me or my nephew. We soon learned the meaning of being hungry for we were badly fed and there was little care for our welfare. In the countryside where food r,'/as not so scarce, one egg was cut in half for the two of us, weekly.
Each morning we had to watch her son being fed eggs and bacon. There was little that I liked about the place apart from going out early before school to the fields nearby to collect mushrooms... a messy business at times since there was often a ground mist and it meant fumbling around for the fungi and trying to avoid the cow pads that seemed to be everywhere.
One time reaching through the mist I grabbed and pulled up a hare that remained still for a moment in my hand, but violently struggled as we looked eye to eye. I dropped him and to this day I don't know which of us was the more surprised and frightened. One day during a rare visit by my sister, my nephew, her son, told her how really unhappy we
were with this place and we were back in London the next day. London and back to the Blitz.

Then, night after night, we used to take our bedding back down the New North Road underground station, as soon as possible after we had arrived home from Rotherfield St or Ecclesbourne Rd schools, where we were only taught for a few hours, half a day. Of course, we were only allowed to stay in the station after the trains had stop running and the electric lines were switched off. ...I think this was about 11pm. These were not happy days and
there were times when due to a period free of bombing when we would sleep in our own beds, but this entailed some risk from surprise raids. I well remember standing at our street door and watching the fires all around and rushing to put out incendiary bombs with bags filled with sand readily stacked on the pavements. This was stopped after a time when the bombs were made containing explosive. Sometimes there were hundreds dropped and everybody seemed to be trying to put them out. ..There were quite a few casualties from the bomb and shell fragments or shrapnel. I had a narrow escape whilst standing in the doorway of my home watching, what was after all, a brilliant and very frightening firework display. Standing wearing a steel helmet, I escaped injury when a large piece of red hot shrapnel was deflected from my face when it struck the rim and | finished up with the helmet over my face and a lump of metal at my feet.

This was followed by a period of comparative calm during which schooling which had been cut to half day because of the number of schools closed through bomb damage and lack of teaching staff; schooling that was nevertheless, serious and intensive where and when some of the older
and dedicated teachers stayed or returned. With my final return to London from evacuation was to attend limited schooling due to War disruption at Rotherfield St. school and for the first time in mixed classes; this fact caused a major disruption in the quality of teaching because several of the girls were older than most of the boys and certainly showed it in their insolent behaviour to the teachers who had only taught in boys class previously. One teacher named Baldwin was a real toughie from my pre-war class at Shepperton Rd. Yet he was no match for some of the girls.
The Headmaster was A J Little, a very likeable man, who remarked in my final school report ".A reliable trustworthy lad of very good all round ability, painstaking and amenable. Should make an excellent mechanic." Not so bad considering the disruptions of that time. Upon leaving school I found a job as an engineering apprentice at the scientific instrument makers, Negretti & Zambras, just off the Caledonian Road Islington. I used to walk there
from my address in Queensbury St. along Essex Road to the Angel and through Chapel St because it saved the bus fares.

1944
Quite early in 1944 Hitler launched his secret weapons the Vl and VZs that were unleashed mostly against London bringing with them a time of real tenor because we were really defenseless against these machines that caused so much death and destruction after little or no warning.

On a quiet Sunday morning, after a warning had sounded, and after I had promised to leave my bed to follow my parents, who had left the house to take shelter in the brick street shelters, a V1 crashed at the corner of the street about 200 feet away. My parents' home was completely demolished with me underneath. I was still alive simply because my bedroom door
had been blown inwards, some were twisted in the air and had fallen over the bed. It came to rest on the top and bottom frames of the bed, creating a space in which I lay, saved from being crushed. That wooden door held the debris off me, and I soon regained consciousness; choking because of
the soot, dust and smoke; terrified by the shouts and screaming. My reaction was to struggle and shout when suddenly I noticed a chink of light to one side of the door above, a hole through which I eventually pushed my hand. This action led to frantic efforts to get to me by some rescue workers who had seen the movement of my hand. I was pulled out quite naked and bleeding from the numerous abrasions caused mostly by flying glass and scratches from jagged wood, I had a coat or a blankets put around me and was carefully carried in the arms of one of the rescuers, up and over the debris of my home.

At that same moment of time I saw my mother and father framed by what was left of the front door jambs, standing crying and in a date of shock, hardly believing that they could see and to hear me again. After they had been assured that I was not seriously hurt, we were led through the smoking
rubble and past so many people tearing at and digging into the ruins of other houses, where other people were still buried.
Whether it was reality or not, I still remember seeing the head of an old lady who had lived next door lying on top of the ruins of her home and I believe detached from her body. Another horror came when after a few yards we stopped, whilst a couple of the rescuers removed the boots from two legs that were protruding from the chaos of broken bricks with the intention of putting them on me. At that lime I did not know that the legs were artificial and belonged to a man who had still not been rescued; knowledge that would not have made the situation or nightmare any easier for me.

We were taken to the Underground station at Essex Road where there was some emergency help offered. Word was sent to my sisters, who were living at Stoke Newington and we were soon collected by them. We went to the home of my sister, Ada, in Hackney. Over the next few, weeks I returned to dig into the debris of my home although there was little to recover. But on one occasion, two three weeks later, when raising the comer of our flattened kitchen table, I was startled and horrified when a filthy, stinking lump of fur moved and I took into my hands our old pet cat, still alive. On the bus to Stoke Newington so many other passengers expressed sympathy for
her, even in that filthy state. She lived with us for several years after, until the day she was killed by a car. During those days, my older brother, Alfred, was rescued from drowning when the landing craft on which he served as a gunner was sunk, during the Normandy Landings I believe. He was not informed about the V1 that had destroyed our home and only discovered this later when, after hospitalization, he was allowed home on sick leave. When he emerged from the underground station at Essex Road, he witnessed a sight of flattened and destroyed streets where his home had once
been. One shock on top of another so weakened his health, that he never again regained his vigour and health; this resulted in his early death just five years after the war鈥檚 end.

AIR RAID NATIONAL FIRE SERVICE REPORTS. (Actual)\
09.19am. June '18 1944. Flying bomb Vl. ESSEX ROAD 191 TO 211:
8 small fires. ST MATTHEWS CHURCH: QUEENSBURY STREET 1 TO 51 : ECCLESBOURNE
ROAD I TO 22: RAYNOR PLACE I TO 35: ROTHERFIELD STREET 89 To 132:
NEW NORTH ROAD 288 TO 312.
Eleven buildings demolished by explosion and 1S buildings severely damaged by blast. A quarter of a mile, surrounding property damaged slightly by blast.
TEN KILLED AND 133INJURED.

I was enlisted into the RAF in 1947 after a period of apprenticeship in Bakery and Confectionery, and served three years, Even during my service time I reacted to the sounds of sirens and loud explosions, and it was years before I stopped reacting, even in cinemas. My Father, who was a regular soldier, served from 1914 to 1917 in the trenches of France and Flanders. He was wounded seriously late in 1917 and was left crippled for the rest of his
life. At that time he was father to live children; six by 1929. My Mother lost her only brother the same year in Flanders and a son soon after and because of the last war.

Like so many families in Britain, our family life was shaped by War and the aftermath, not once but twice. We know from experience the meaning of War and the suffering quite unknown to the politicians whose stupidity and ambition cause it to happen. Not all the memories of that time were unpleasant and I recall an event that was certainly welcomed and enjoyed by the children living near the Angel Islington.

Due to prolonged power cuts an ice cream manufacture鈥檚 freezing plant stopped working and the whole stock was likely to melt. Word was sent to some of the local schools: resulting in crowds of kids crowding both Essex Road and Upper Street carrying cartons of ice cream back home and trying to eat lollies at the same time. It never happened again, unfortunately!

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