大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Pennie Hedge, a volunteer from 大象传媒 London, on behalf of Joyce Lee, and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Lee fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

My memories are pretty sad ones. I worked in a manufacturing company in Deptford, already in itself a target. Our offices were under the London Railway in the arches, and we had to work one Saturday in five, so you had four at home and one working. And this particular Saturday, it was about twenty past twelve and there was the most horrendous explosion and I thought, 鈥淥h no, they鈥檝e got the railway, after all these years, they鈥檝e got the railway.鈥� I was with another couple of girls and we walked out onto the tow path, out onto the road, and the police stopped us and they said, 鈥榶ou won鈥檛 get home this way.鈥�

It was the bomb that everyone seems to have heard about, it fell on Woolworths in the New Cross Road, on the 25 November 1944. It was a V2. The amazing thing was that we were all ready to leave the office, but as we went towards the windows, they came in and went back. It was suction. We were a good half hours walk from where the bomb fell. All those poor people, only a month from Christmas.

My husband had a good war, an interesting war, he saw places and met people. But I just plodded on. But it didn鈥檛 ever occur to me that we would lose, I was so solid about that. We couldn鈥檛 possibly have people like that controlling our world. And when it finished, everybody went mad. We saw pictures of the celebrations on the TV a few weeks ago. And I was at home with my mother, my father and my mother鈥檚 friend and we didn鈥檛 want to do any of that. We just walked, we went out and we walked the whole perimeter of the estate just to feel peace. We could do it, the lights were on and we could do it. We were exhausted, I鈥檓 sure we were.

And I just couldn鈥檛 believe all the boys that we had known. Some would come back but many wouldn鈥檛. Near my husband鈥檚 ambulance station there was an army recruitment office, and there was a whole batch of boys from their school joined up together. But my husband had already gone into the Medical Corps, rather than be, as he put it, 鈥榗annon fodder.鈥� But almost all of these boys were killed, or, not so much killed. They were captured in Singapore and died of starvation. Every now and then he would ring me and say 鈥楬ave you heard that so-and-so鈥檚 been killed?鈥� And then his brother would die in the next few days, and there would be several boys lost in one family.

I was married in January 1942, I knew my husband before the war. But he was posted abroad in August 1942 . So I had the whole of the second half of the war on my own. But I worked at this manufacturing company. I was in the office as a junior typist, and I had an extremely kind lady director, and she loved the theatre. She would say, 鈥淚f I book seats, any of you want to come?鈥� And we used to see the Ivor Novello shows and things like that. Yes, we had a good war in a way.

I was so sure we wouldn鈥檛 lose that I didn鈥檛 really worry about my husband. He wrote almost every day. And the letters came. That鈥檚 what鈥檚 so amazing. If I didn鈥檛 get a letter one day, I鈥檇 get two the next. Not waiting for weeks and weeks. The sad thing is that I did the same, and he kept mine and brought them home, and we put them with his letters to me in a tin, in my mother鈥檚 garage, and they鈥檝e disappeared. We鈥檝e just moved to our present home and we thought they鈥檝e got to come to light in the move, but they鈥檝e gone and we find that very sad. All we鈥檝e got now is what we can remember.

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