大象传媒

This story has been added by CSV Volunteer from Radio Bristol on behalf on Leonard Wilson.

When I was born on 2nd October 1934 events were already 'in train' which would shade my formative years and those of many like me.

I didn't know whether it was unusual for a 4 or 5 year old to have fairly clear memories. I don't say that all of those years are clear but fragments of them are. I can see my mum and dad, with me, sat at the table in our kitchen... I was playing with something; they were listening to the wireless. Then my mum said " Well we've done it then...鈥� Dad said, 鈥淢aybe it won鈥檛 last long" I could sense something was wrong and mum hugged me and told me "there's no need to worry ".... I didn't understand I didn't know what it meant that we were at war with Germany - it was Sept 1939.

My dad鈥檚 call-up - which didn't mean anything to me at the time - was deferred because mum was expecting another baby. I thought dad looked funny in his ARP 'tin hat鈥� He had to do civil defence duties until he went into the army.

Eventually my brother was born, and then my dad went into the army. Mum and I cried a lot.

Dad hadn't been gone long when we were bombed out.

We were living in Ebsworth Street, Brockley, South East London. When the bombing began we lived and slept downstairs. Mum and dad brought their bed down to the front room....the baby had a cot with them, I slept on the settee in the living room. Mum and dad decided that I wouldn't be evacuated. They knew that dad had to go away but they wanted mum and the children to stay together.

After dad went into the army, mum, the baby and I slept together in mum's bed.

A railway line ran across the top of our road, it was a mine, probably intended for the railway floating silently down by parachute that landed nearby and ruined a lot of houses, ours included. These mines were larger than bombs. The bomber carried one under each wing, both had to be dropped at the same time, otherwise the plane became unbalanced.

There was a very loud explosion and the sound of breaking glass. Although windows were crissed crossed with sticky tape, the glass still broke but the tape prevented it splintering. The baby was crying and mum said, 鈥渄on鈥檛 move"
Then to my surprise men were climbing through our windows calling out. They had torches. I was unhurt but there was blood on the baby. The men told me they would take mum and my brother to hospital. I would have to stay with a neighbour near by...I would see mum tomorrow.

The next morning mum and the baby came to where I was. The baby hadn't been hurt...A piece of glass had cut mums left ear and the blood on the baby was hers.

A message had been sent through civil defence to Aunt Ethel who lived in Anerley, not far from Crystal Palace. The reply said she would put us up.

The near miss and living with my aunt, made mum decide that I should be evacuated and I found myself with Mr and Mrs Marchant at Earlswood Common, Redhill.

They were nice, however as events were going to show, it was a strange place to be. One way for the Germans to reach London was to fly over Red hill. They often dropped unused bombs as they were flying home. We took to joining others in underground shelters on the common.

One morning as we were returning to the Marchants house we discovered a bomb had been dropped in the road outside their house, rupturing and setting fire to the gas main....We were sent to the nearby church hall with other families and given a cup of tea. Later that day we were able to get to the house but it couldn't be lived in. We stayed with relations of the Marchants but a few days later I went back to mum in Anerley.

After a while mum decided we would find our own home. Ebsworth St wasn't available. She found a flat in Forest Hill SE London. There were 2 blocks, 8 flats in each, 2 side-by-side, and 4 stories high. The flats were called Noel Terrace, we were number 14. Actually I was born in number 5 Noel Terrace......I was back where I started.

The railway, which had been our downfall, ran in front of the flats. The nearest track was about 10 yards in front; I think they were 4 tracks, and a marshalling yard, which was very noisy in the morning with trucks being shunted to and fro.

Leaving the front of Noel Terrace and turning right took you under a signal box into a one sided street called I think Clyde Terrace. Small, terrace houses. Turning left from the flats took you along a narrow footpath bounded by a high brick wall on one side and a fence separating you from the railway on the other. The footpath was approx 200 yards long and opened out onto Forest Hill station.

The footpath and Clyde Terrace were parallel to Dartmouth Rd.

Noel Terrace was Dickensian; the front entrances were stone stairways with iron banisters. There was a side entrance, which led to the back yard and coal cellars. There were back stairs, which were narrow and wooden. The flat had cold water and gaslight.

Mum said that when you shut the door it was home, and for almost the whole of the rest of the war it was - we moved in 1953.

It seems a strange thing to say but life settled down. Amid the effects of the war a routine was established.

I went to church school, St John's I think on the opposite side of the railway.

There were air raids almost every night. There was an anti aircraft battery on Horniman's Hill. Nights were very noisy, sometimes nearby or sometimes in the distance but always noisy.

Life did go on. I went to Saturday club by the capitol cinema...I went to Horniman Museum. I sailed my boat in the boating pond....ITMA was funny ..." Can I do you now Sir? ""

There were a couple of incidents, which stood out.

To and from school, I would walk along the footpath to Forrest Hill Station and then go under the railway through a sub-way then cross the road and turn right then left to St Johns school.

One lunchtime as I was going home, I was walking through the subway; when people started running back down the steps and a man grabbed me and said, 鈥淗ang on son". Seconds later several German fighters screamed up from Brockley and disappeared up Dartmouth Road. They were very low. The silence after the noise was for a few seconds, tremendous. Then the man said that it was okay and off I went.

Unusually, mum met me along the footpath, she had a worried look and when we met she gave me a big hug. On the wireless later that day we heard the Germans had machine gunned a school in Deptford, I think. They had timed it just as the children were coming out to lunch. The incident caused a great deal of horror.

The marshalling yard opposite Noel Terrace attracted the raider鈥檚 attention every now and then.

Clyde Terrace was hit twice by near misses, at the end furthest from Noel Terrace. One night St John's School got a direct hit, I had to go to another school, near Forrest Hill swimming baths. I think it was called Kelvin Grove.

Eventually the raids dwindled and there were some nights when all was quiet. On those occasions my young brother was indignant - 鈥渂ang, bang!" he used to demand.

When the bombs stopped their place was taken by the Doodlebugs...I swear one of those chased me one evening.

My brother was now old enough to go to a war nursery, releasing mum for a war job. I would take myself to school, while mum took my brother to nursery. After school I would come home at about the same time as mum. Together we would collect my brother.

One evening we were walking up the hill with my brother in the pram and we suddenly heard the distant sound of a doodlebug....the road on either side of us was bounded by high walls. We started running towards houses where the front garden wall was scaleable.

We reached the first house just as the engine stopped. I'm sure it was overhead. We expected it to come straight down. Mum grabbed my brother from the pram and we scrambled over and crouched down.

After what seemed a lifetime there was an explosion quite a way off...we had to laugh.

The doodlebug was then replaced by the V2 rocket. These didn't seem too bad. Bombs would whistle, bombers droned, anti-aircraft guns were deafening, doodlebugs were less worrying, although when the engine stopped nearby, then it was scary. With the V2 there was it only exploding, if you heard the explosion you knew you weren't dead. If you were unlucky enough to be hit you wouldn't have known much about it.

During the V2 period Dad came home on leave. He was horrified by the V2's. He didn't know what had gone on before all he knew that the V2's were horrific. He told mum that we should go to the country. So mum got a job as a cook in a war nursery in Dorset.

The Duchess of Hamilton had kept one wing of her family home 'Fern House' and turned the rest over to the authorities to make a home for bombed out children. As mum was a cook my brother was allowed into the nursery. The Duchess' husband as the title suggests was Scots.

I was too old for the nursery but a couple of miles away were Berwick St John. A small village. I was billeted with the Rev Poole and Mrs Poole. Mrs Poole's mother also lived in the vicarage; she had a lovely Airedale dog called "Merry Jane"

I was in heaven; just up the road from the vicarage where I spent every moment was a farm, Mr and Mrs Hisock and 2 grown up sons John and Dennis. I had my first ride in a car an Austin 7. The Austin 12 was laid up for the duration. I rode on the tractor, helped with the harvest - cold tea from a lemonade bottle and cheese and onion sandwiches. Hayricks...digging potatoes....calves with big beautiful eyes...watching a pig be killed and cut up.
A small village school where in the afternoons we spent learning how to grow vegetables. Singing in the church choir. Sometimes Rev Poole asked me to pump the church organ - " keep the piece of lead on the line"
Christmas celebrations in the village hall where there were games and Rev Poole showed films on his noisy projector.
Totally different to life in London, during war or peace. It was too good to last.

Mum found out about half day schooling and arranged for me to go to Shaftesbury Grammar School. She also took me away from Berwick St John and moved me in with Mr and Mrs Toogood. Mr Toogood was in charge of the Duchess' horses. During the war there weren't many on the estate. Now it wasn't cars or tractors but pony and trap...another first for me.

The Duchess spoke to me and me to her on several occasions, she was very nice.

The war was coming to an end. We were going to win. Dad was invalided out of the army. He came to Fern and stayed a while. Then he, mum and my brother returned to London, Noel Terrace. I stayed with Mr Toogood until the end of the academic year, and for most of the summer holidays. I had kept in touch with my friends in Berwick St John, after saying my goodbyes, I returned to London in time to start the new term at St Bartholomew鈥檚 Sydenham in Sept 1944.

A few months later in May 1945 it was all over.

What the war did for me during my formative years is impossible to know. I sum the experience up as follows....A young Londoner living by the side of the railway in a cold water, gas light flat went to live with a Duchess.

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