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This story has been written onto the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People’s War site by CSV Storygatherer Lucy Thomas of Callington U3A on behalf of Michael Ferguson. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.

FROM PILLAR TO POST.
THE WAR MEMORIES OF MICHAEL FERGUSON

My name is Michael Ferguson and I was born in 1934. I was five when the war started which is about when my first memories kick in. I was told I was born in Beckenham, Kent. Most of my up-bringing was in a little offshoot of Bromley in Kent, called Shortlands, which was mostly fairly well run down terraced houses. I have good memories of being a child. I was an only child but for some reason which I do not know and have never delved into because the family clamped up on, I was brought up by an Aunt, my mother’s sister and an uncle who shall we say was two steps removed from being a father figure. I think I must have locked into the single child bit quite happily at an early age.

The period about 1940/41, at the start of the London air raids, we had a night time raid which was probably going on all over south London, although we did live quite near a major railway route into London. We were carpet bombed. This took out four or five houses in our street, which wasn’t too hard to do, because you blew up one and the three either side all fell in as well. I can remember we were under the stairs, as protection, and after all the crash bang wallop, or during the time of the crash bang wallop I had the feeling of the floor-boards rippling up. There were about four of us under this little stair case. We came out and all that was left of the back wall of the house was the a big old brown wooden radio which was swinging on its aerial in the open air and there was debris all over the back garden

We were carried out to the front of the house by an air-raid warden. None of us were hurt, but the whole street was alight. There were broken water mains, and broken gas mains which had caught light, so there were all these dancing fires up the street; all quite exciting for a little feller! Eventually, I don’t know how we got there, but we finished up in one of these so called temporary accommodation units which were the other side of Bromley. It was fairly near the police station, and we were all living in this great community hall of some sort, which I can remember. However, I don’t remember much about the stay, but from what I was told later we were up there for about ten days.

We then finished up in another house in the same street, and, within a very short space of time after that (because I was evacuated twice during the war I may well have got the sequences wrong here), I remember a fine sunny day playing in the gutter with my mates, floating ‘ladies hats’ down the water that was flowing there, and being scooped up and given a quick wash and brush up and a suitcase thrust into my hand, and I was in the back of a car and off to Sussex. Apparently, the lady that had picked me up was (again, as I previously said, my family clammed up on everything) the ‘black sheep’ of the female side of the family, and she was living as a housekeeper with this gentleman who was a travelling salesman/rep, something in the agricultural business. It was strange enough to see a car in those days because of petrol rationing, there were very few private cars around. Anyway we went off to, I think it was, Uckfield in Sussex. I don’t remember much about the town, but I do remember the house. It was a big detached house on the outskirts of the town, and they were obviously not short of a bob or two. This gentleman used to be away most of the week — I think he must have been going round farms and so forth. I know we lived well on it, because as a child I don’t remember anything about food, so I can only assume that I was never hungry.

I attended the local village school, which looking back, must have been Victorian. It had very high windows and the tiniest little playground out the front. All age groups used to get herded out there where there was hardly room to run around. That was all right, but we didn’t learn anything! In those days you were lucky if you did learn anything because of the number of schools you were shunted around. Some time ago I did actually count it up and I think I went to nine different schools during the course of my early years.

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