大象传媒

We lived in Silvertown in the East end of London. There were factories at one end of the street and docks at the other end and a large paint factory near where we lived. When war started all schools shut down and the children were evacuated. As the war was quiet, we were brought home from evacuation just in time for the Battle of Britain.

It was Saturday and my mother, father and sister went shopping, leaving my brother and me at home. The sirens sounded, so we went into our brick built shelter. Two ladies from the shop next door come into our shelter, they were both crying and praying and holding my brother tightly. Bombs were falling and the force of one broke the latch on the door, so I tied a piece of string to the door and held it closed. It was like a yoyo, every time a bomb exploded, the door was dragged open, pulling me with it. I looked up every time and the sky was just filled with planes, dropping black things continuously.

After what seemed ages, the police came and told us hat we had to get out as the paint factory was going to blow up. So out we went with bombs falling everywhere until come kind people pulled us into their Anderson shelter. My mother and sister found us later. My dad had done to see if his parents were okay. While my mother was looking for us, she had seen her own father in the rubble of his own bombed house; the wardens had told her that he was dead.

The bombing eased up, everyone was told to get out of Silvertown. We got to Woolwich ferry which wasn鈥檛 working. The tunnel was full of people sheltering, so we couldn鈥檛 get through so we had to wander around Silvertown, or what was left of it until the planes came again. Factories were burning, ships were on fire and we saw some dead people lying about. People were taking as may homeless as possible into their Anderson shelter; we were packed in like sardines. I was sat on a Sailor鈥檚 knee.
The lady鈥檚 house whose shelter we were in, was hit by an incendiary bomb and was on fire. The bombing went on and off all through the night.

The next morning we went to our house, which was a pile of rubble with soldiers and wardens searching for a woman the three children (us). They said that they had found a man and a puppy (the puppy was for my birthday later that month). They said my father had been taken to hospital. My mother was told to board a bus that would take us, together with other Silvertown survivors to a school (believe Agate School) as a temporary shelter. My mother refused to go until she had found my father, se we were taken by ambulance to my grandparents in Canning Town.

My mother and grandfather went to the hospital and were told that he had been in theatre which was bombed and that he was dead. They were told that they would have to go the West Ham Town Hall where the dead were laid out for identification.

He was not there. Some of the dead were taken to East Ham Town Hall and we were advised that we should to there, but he wasn鈥檛 there either. After some days he came home to his mother鈥檚 house and told us he had put the puppy into the shelter and as there was no gas or water, he took our Sunday joint to feed the pup but at that moment a bomb had hit the house. The explosion pushed him and part of the house into the shelter.

The school we should have gone to for shelter was hit by a land mine and killed almost all.

We were taken to Hertfordshire and on arrival all details were taken. When it was known that we were from Silvertown we were told that we were the only family to come out of Silvertown without losing a life or limb.

I have since found that Sivertown suffered a greater weight of bombing than anywhere else in Britain.

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