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I was 21 when the air raids on London started. I was working as a clerk for an insurance company at the Royal Exchange in Lombard Street. One day at the end of July 1940 I left work at about half-past five and took the tube to Waterloo. I was waiting for the Southern Railway train towards Epsom when the air raid siren sounded for the first time. Everybody was cleared from the platforms and directed down many stairs until hundreds of us found ourselves in a huge warehouse, about thirty feet wide and one hundred feet long — all red brick and bare lights.

Can you imagine the apprehension? Everyone was worried about their families. We couldn’t hear any bombs where we were in the centre of London, which only made the fears for our families and friends grow, who were further out — were they ‘getting it’? Also, we seemed to be safe, yes — but would our families know that? There were no phones in the warehouse and the radio went off during air raids (and of course no mobile phones!).

One man recognised me as a fellow traveller on the SR train to Epsom, so we stayed together for moral support. Then, two other ladies also seemed familiar so they joined us. We stood and waited, and worried. We spoke about our families, and generally supported each other. I think we were down there about two hours.

Eventually we were allowed to climb back up to the platforms. Of course, our first thought was to contact families, but all the phone boxes were occupied. One of the ladies in our group expected to reach home first, so she took phone numbers off the rest of us and promised to ring our homes to say that we were ok, and on our way home.

It turned out that the bombs had dropped about two or three miles from where I lived. As we travelled between Raynes Park and Motspur Park we all gasped with horror. We could see where bombs had fallen either side of the line — on one side several houses had been badly damaged, and on the other the gatehouse of a factory where chequebooks were printed had been destroyed. We later found out that the watchman had been killed.

I arrived home to the relief of my mother. My brother worked in Putney and lived in Southfields, so he was not affected. My father’s shops, near Ebury Bridge, closed at 8pm, so he avoided the delays and was home at the usual time.

Immediately after came the weekend when the Germans first bombed Docklands. We lived twelve miles south-west of London, but could see the sky in the north-east: it looked just like sunset. We just stared and thought, ‘Those poor people’, ‘Our poor country’.

And there was plenty more to come. Air raids went on from then until about April 1941 — the first fifty-seven nights without a break. And when there was a night without a warning, that was just as worrying — ‘what’s old Hitler up to?’, ‘Is it the invasion?’

But, however bad it got — and Dunkirk was probably the worst — there were always Churchill’s speeches to inspire us…and everyone I knew never thought for a moment that Jerry would defeat us.

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Steve Gothard on behalf of Dorothy May Parker, and has been added to the site with her permission. Dorothy fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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