大象传媒

I was 19 when war broke out and was married before I was 20. My first baby was born in Putney in 1940 with my second child arriving in 1942 and we were in London for the whole of the war. My husband was in the R.A.F. In 1940, air raids started and were very bad and in the beginning, we took shelter in the Anderson shelter in the garden, but it let water in. The house next door had a bigger shelter as the house had been requisitioned by the government for use by people who had been bombed out of their own houses. Once this house was in use, I was no longer able to use that shelter and, as the public shelters were full, I had to use the Underground station at Hyde Park Corner. I had to check with the warden and book our bunk. The one we had was only available because it was near the ventilation shaft and was very draughty. At first we had to sleep on the platform, but later bunks were available. There was no bedding so we had to take that with us. I was pregnant with my third child by this time. The atmosphere was sombre. We all had to leave the station by 6.30am so that the cleaners could come in. Walking over Putney Bridge at that time in the morning with two small children was no joke.
When my third baby was due, the hospital where I was to have the baby (St James's Hospital,Balham) was evacuated to Oxfordshire and that is where my baby was born. Meanwhile, my two older children were in a residential nursery in London awaiting evacuation to a safer place, but then caught mumps and measles. They therefore had to stay in London which I found a real worry. I was then able to go to my aunt's in Buckinghamshire for a short stay and then returned to London. This was in 1944. There was a lull in the raids but then the flying bomb raids began.
I remember the first day of the flying bombs. I was paying the milkman and we noticed a plane flying over with flames coming out of the back. The milkman thought this was odd as it was the third plane on fire he'd seen that morning. Later, we heard on the radio that these were actually flying bombs. To begin with, the Germans struggled to get the range right and bombs were landing either to the south or north of London. Eventually, they got their target and London really suffered. You couldn't take shelter because you couldn't hear them coming so we had to stay put and get on with everyday life. After the invasion of France, the V1 lauchsites were captured and the bombs stopped coming. We then had the V2 rockets coming over and there was no warning about these either. These came from Holland and then our forces were able to overrun the lauch sites by spring 1945. When the end of the war came, I didn't feel overjoyed, just relieved and exhausted. Being able to draw back the blackout curtains and see the starry sky and to show my children streetlights are things I particularly remember. I thank God that myself and my children survived the war when so many Londoners did not.

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