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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by a volunteer from Oxford ´óÏó´«Ã½/CSV on behalf of Ken Bolton and has been added to this site with his permission. Ken Bolton fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

PEOPLE IN STORY: Ken Bolton, aged 3 in 1939
LOCATION OF STORY: London
MAIN AREA OF INTEREST: Childhood
TITLE: WHICH BOMB WILL FALL ON ME?

Ken’s father, too old for service, was away building camps all over the country. The war was hard work for his mother, who had to make sure the children went to school, do her own work, then at night had to cope with the bombing as well as work out the rations and what she could buy with them. They walked everywhere and his mother went shopping everyday, mostly to/from the small shops at the end of the road.

Ken lived in London and remembers the railway at the back of the garden, the anti-aircraft guns, the searchlights and the nearby crossroads on fire after a raid. There were lots of incendiary and phosphorous bombs, and for fear of injury Ken was warned not to touch things lying about. He was 3 in 1939 and remembers being evacuated to the Midlands with his mother and sister, complete with label. They soon returned to London and endured the London Blitz. There was bombing every night for about 10 months, and they would always wonder which bomb was going to fall on them. When the sirens went Ken, his mother and sister would jump into the Anderson shelter in the garden, straight onto the mattresses within. At other times the family would stay in the house, Ken being put under the kitchen table, his mum sitting on a chair with his sister. There was a Morrison table shelter — an iron table with grills - in the lounge. Ken remembers the Christmas presents being passed to him through the grill.

In spring 1941 the family (Ken, younger sister Sheila and his mother) went to a farm in Tavistock for 9 months. It was very quiet on the farm and two things Ken vividly remembers are the bluebells in the woods and a Shirley Temple film in Tavistock.

By the end of 1941 the worst of the bombing was over and the family returned to London. Ken remembers going to and from school and being told not to look at the bomb sites and other ‘nasties’. In 1944 a flying bomb landed on Highbury corner, just after Ken had walked past during the school lunch hour. He saw the bomb coming and the blast blew him into the Anderson shelter. In September 1944 he remembers a Sunday tea-time when a V2 rocket was dropped at Drayton Park. Sometimes the family would shelter from the bombs in the brick shelter at the school, at other times, at night, they would get up, put their clothes on over their pyjamas and go to the underground at Highbury, ½ to ¾ mile from their home.

At last the war came to an end and Ken remembers the lovely street party, held in a cul-de-sac with the whole street full of tables.

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