大象传媒

One night we heard a doodlebug coming over and the warnings had gone out and my mother, sister and grandmother went down into the anderson shelter in the front room. We heard it stop and this was the dangerous time because we knew that it had run out of fuel and was going to fall and explode. Our house in Wandsworth had huge plaster ceiling roses. My grandfather and grandmother lived in the top part of the house, but my grandfather had a stiff leg as his kneecap had been shot up in the first world war. So grandfather was slow in coming down the stairs. When we heard the silence as the fuel ran out my grandfather pressed himself against the wall as he had only got to the bottom of the stairs. The flying bomb exploded with a huge bang and it transpired that it had hit the Fire Station about a quarter of a mile away. The plaster rose in the hall fell at my grandfather麓s feet and there was another one which fell onto their bed, which they had been sleeping in just a few minutes beforehand. We wwere all safe in the anderson shelter and I can vividly remember that there was a hole blown through the house so that you could see from the front of the house right through to the back garden. About half an hour later the Air Raid wardens came round to ask if we were all alright. We told him we were all safe and he continued along the road. I was about 5 years old at the time and will never forget this experience

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