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5.
After 1941, locally, a year or so of relative inactivity in the war followed, except for the occasional alert or ‘hit and run’ raid. Only one ‘incident’ comes to mind because I remember the night very well - a late autumn evening in 1943 and we had been visiting friends and had not been home more than a few minutes when we heard what I immediately recognised as the familiar sound of a German bomber. There was no alert and no sooner had my mother dismissed the idea than we heard the swish of a stick of bombs. One hit a local department store, while another hit a cinema — locally famous for its size and grandeur. Luckily, very luckily for the audience, the detonator was ripped off as the bomb penetrated the domed roof of the auditorium. Thus, it could not explode. Had it done so the number of deaths apparently, would have been colossal. The building was full to capacity and was then, the second largest cinema in Europe with walls so thick the blast would have been contained within the building. When the cinema was demolished sixteen years later, a tragic event in itself for it was a fine example of early French art-deco, it apparently took over six months, which gives some indication of its size and sturdiness.

During the long summer evenings, with the clocks forward two hours, we were to witness the sight and sound of our own, twin and four engine bombers, flying in large formations, on their way out — presumably - to exact ‘area bombing’ on the enemy. The mass of sound created, especially flying at low altitude under low cloud, made it difficult to hear anything else. We would count them; ten, twenty, forty, one hundred - formation after formation for sometimes ten or twenty minutes - mostly Blenheims and Lancasters.

My mother would join my father and I in the garden, looking up to the sky and drying her hands from washing the supper things, while my father broke off his gardening, to lean on his fork or hoe, and watch. They brought some of the neighbours to cheer and gesticulate -
‘Bomb the b-------s! - they did it to us so let them have it back! - Serve the b-----s right! - A dose of their own medicine.’ However, others were more reflective — ‘They are not all bad — ‘not all Nazis — ‘there must be some good Germans — ‘I feel sorry for the women and children.’
Sometimes, in the early hours you could hear the low moan of the bombers returning - those lucky enough — further afield, at a much higher altitude and contrasting oddly with a ‘dawn chorus’ of blackbirds.

Although we were unaware at the time, these armadas were the military build-up to D-Day. Large military convoys’ were a common enough sight everywhere during the war, but troop trains were now increasing in number and packed to capacity. They passed along the railway at the foot of the garden fairly regularly; the backs of khaki uniforms pressed against the carriage windows, while others wearing army forest caps, hung from open windows, sometimes waving. Military convoys proceeded not only by rail, but also through the local high street. Scores of army lorries filled with troops and accompanied by what seemed huge pieces of artillery, and tanks - often driven under their own steam and making a terrifying clatter, while vibrating the ground under your feet. Police held up ordinary traffic in order to allow them to pass without hindrance. With sudden excitement my father was heard talking to a neighbour and saying ‘something big was a-foot.’ In the air - a constant traffic of Dakota transports, squadrons of spitfires and hurricanes, as well as bombers.
However, for us the punishment was not yet over. Soon we were to face new weapons of destruction - the V1 and the V2.

6.
My introduction to the V1 flying bomb — ‘doodle-bug’ or ‘buzz-bomb’ were the more usual terms used at the time - was 2am one Saturday morning. Awoken with the sound of heavy gunfire - less often heard since the raids in 1940/41 - their vivid lightening flashes lit up the white net curtains of my bedroom, against which, a shadow of the window frame shuddered with each impact. Though now nine years old my earlier anxieties quickly returned as nobody knew what was going on. My parents assumed the bright red auras of light moving speedily through the thick low cloud, were aircraft that had been hit by flack. Their sound was unlike anything heard before - a deep throttle-like sound, rather like a powerful motorcycle engine.
The following morning, while out shopping, we had our first daylight sighting. Sheltering under a pavement alongside a church we watched through a grill, these small, ‘pilotless’ planes - the idea of which made them seem all the more sinister - pass over.

They had short square wings; no propeller, cigar shaped fuselage and tale mounted retro engine, from which orange exhaust flames plumed from the rear like a large blow-lamp. Everything about them left an indelible impression. They flew very fast and with a kind of fierce determination — seemingly oblivious to the flack bursting all around them. Bursts, which produced, sudden small cotton wool-like clouds of dense black smoke, which then drifted off in the wind nonchalantly, expanding into nothingness or to disappear behind the façade of a building.

Adjustment was rapid over the following weeks and it all became a familiar sequence - a part of daily routine. We soon learnt how to ‘read the signs’; how much risk we dare take and when to take cover. We would stop whatever we were doing, wherever we were and turn our gaze upwards when we heard a V1 approaching. Waiting and listening with a build up of inner tension for the exact pitch when that sudden unnerving silence meant it was going to land, if not on you, very close by. The sudden silence once the engine had cut out lasted about six or seven seconds before impact. A sigh of relief went up if the thing passed over and continued its journey. Sometimes, after cutting-out, the expected impact never occurred, since occasionally, it would glide silently onwards for a few more miles.

They came in a very narrow corridor — across Kent and East Sussex, up over East Surrey, which became known as ‘Doodle-Bug Alley.’ Ranged against them evidently, were a whole, virtually unbroken line of Bofors and Vickers anti-aircraft guns, mounted along the cliff tops of the South coast for about twenty or so miles. The noise of their firing must have been awesome but they apparently managed to destroy 70% of these V1’s before they got anywhere near London. Things were bad enough, but one is left to imagine what conditions would have been like had they all succeeded in getting through.

By this time, having no shelter of our own, a neighbour friend - kindly offered the protection of their shelter — which meant about eight of us packed into a tiny Anderson shelter. Bob, their son, borrowed his father’s helmet, though it was several sizes too big for him, to go outside and watch the V1’s pass over, scurrying back if one cut-out close-by. I was irritated no end when my parents refused to allow me to join him, but they were worried we would be hit by shrapnel from the anti-aircraft guns. Shrapnel could easily go through your scull and apparently, even today, tree surgeons in London have been known to find pieces of shrapnel embedded in tree-trunks.

Among this shelter community was Bobs’ grandmother, who, nursing her caged cannery on her lap would mutter mantra-like as a V1 was coasting towards us —
‘Praise the Lord! Keep the engine running! Praise the Lord! Keep the engine running!….’.
To which her daughter once replied, in jest -
‘You wicked old woman!. Some poor b-----‘s got to get it and why shouldn’t it be us?’
‘If your names’ on-it you’ll get-it!.’ her husband added.
I think I remember this little conversation because I wondered whether I had been as wicked, when during the earlier raids I used to pray.

One incident I remember well, occurred while hurrying with my parents, through the City of London early one Sunday morning. The time of day and location seemed precipitous; on our way to Liverpool Street, we had already heard the dreaded air-raid siren as we were crossing London Bridge, when we heard approaching the familiar rasping deep ‘throttle’ sound. No guns were in action and it proceeded towards us, growing louder and echoing with deadly significance through the narrow deserted streets and what was left of the tall office buildings. Even more poignant than its sound, was the sudden cut-off — which struck me like a shock, for the silence was deadlier. My prayer to ‘keep the engine running’ was not answered. Instructed by my father, we quickly lay face downwards with our hands over the back of our heads.
The impact was enormous - ricocheting across the city and accompanied by the tremendous roar of falling masonry, bricks and spraying glass - it could not have been at the very most, more than a quarter of a mile away. As we rose clouds of dust were already enveloping the empty street behind us, but we pressed on in the opposite direction towards the railway station - where we had only a few minutes before catching our train. The train, filled with American servicemen, raced another V1 through the East London suburbs. The passengers transfixed as the thing drew level with the train then pulled ahead, parting company when the train forked right at a junction and a collective sigh of relief passed down the train.
Normally, the train crawled until reaching the outer suburbs but this time it picked up speed within a mile or so despite the rising gradient out of Liverpool Street. According to the guard who explained as he passed along the train, it had become normal procedure to give a through train clearance during an alert - to get it away from the target area as quickly as possible.

After the launching sights in Northern France had been over- run by the Allies, the V2 quickly followed and was an even more terrifying weapon. No alert and no proceeding sound to warn you.
The V2 ‘Rocket’ became a potent symbol, and was seen as a foretaste of future wars. It’s range of damage was even greater than the V1, itself capable of incredible damage, demolishing a whole block of several houses; bringing down weak ceilings and shattering windows in buildings up to a quarter of a mile away.

Day and night powerful explosions reverberated, far and wide - up to thirty a week. A feeling of gnawing anxiety became pervasive, unable for a second to feel completely relaxed; permanent stress as opposed to all previous experience, where you had sometimes a chance to feel safe - if only temporarily. In a grey and bleak autumn and winter - as it happened the last of the war - rumours were rife - 50 killed here, 200 killed there, with hundreds of terrible injuries. One I remember people talking about, was of a major incident at New Cross. There were always - as throughout the war - numerous tales of miraculous escapes. One of my own provided a salutary thought; during a trip to London, a bus, which, had it been drawing away a little more slowly we would have succeeded in catching, went on apparently, to have all it’s passengers killed at Kennington.
After the war a picture in the newspapers of a V2 erected in Trafalgar Square, revealed how monstrous it was. Sixty years later, observing it in the Imperial War Museum, it seems no less so.

7.
I have virtually no memory of the less traumatic aspects of life during the war — the trivial happenings of the ordinary, everyday. I remember when they came to remove all the iron railings, including the foot-scraper, and the street afterwards looking terribly bear. On another day, my mother with enthusiasm gathered up in her arms all the spare saucepans she could find and dashed out with them. Although left on street corners I do not remember seeing any of them.

Well past my seventh birthday before beginning, my education was a shambles; very patchy, with constant interruptions because of air raid alerts or bomb damage suffered the previous night. I attended a school situated in an old Church yard that looked like a scene from a Dracula film — ancient tomb-stones leaning over amidst masses of trees and over-arching shrubs — it certainly had a creepy significance - to which I grew quite attached with time.

As far as household needs were concerned, whether my parents used the ‘black-market’ I do not know and if they did they probably took great care to hide the fact from me. My mother managed to produce regular meals from what little there was available - baring in mind, I had no memory of anything more. A diet of dripping sandwiches, corn beef, sausages - containing bits of gristle; offal and rarely, greens, but a lot of swede, peas, and a revolting powdered substance called ‘Pom’ which was supposed to be a substitute for mashed potato. Also remembered vividly were the tins of dried milk and small packets of dried egg that had packaging covered in the Stars and Stripes; and creamy tasting, processed cheese from Canada and which I found very ‘moorish.’

Rationing lasted well after the war had ended, but I have a vivid image of my mother, seated at the kitchen table, studying the family ration books. A buff coloured one for food — its pages ingrained with thousands of tiny hairs - and a separate dark pink colour book for clothing and furniture. In the former each coupon was ticked off by the shop assistant — usually with different coloured pencils - mostly very blunt — while the clothing coupons were cut out with scissors. Each year they were replaced with a new set which, strangely, always made my mouth water as I developed a strong association between these new books, neat and compressed in their newness, with the fresh smell of dairy produce. Sweets were regarded as a luxury - a rare treat - and it was always an exciting moment when any turned up in the house.

Occasionally we visited the local ‘British Restaurant’ - a chain set up by the Ministry of Food for the duration of the war and which sold cheap meals in spaces that seemed vast but very basic. They were always busy, and many users looked not very different from the present homeless and ‘down and out’ - and many of them were. An enduring sight was that of small groups of sad looking people, walking the streets with large suite cases, or using them as seats while waiting outside reception centres or council offices.

As the war drew to its close, the world acquired, an increasingly battered appearance. Everything and anything, already pretty drab, probably from well before the war, but fortunate enough to have escaped the bombs, had become even more shabby - a bleak world where the sun seemed never to shine. Nothing was thought worth renewing or renovating when their destruction might be imminent, and besides there were more important matters to attend to.
The few cars that were on the road - and most of these were military and emergency vehicles - were driven around with large rectangular, mattress-like objects fitted to their roofs — gas filled bags - to replace petrol. While buses towed behind them some kind of coal burning device that looked a little like a barbecue stove not cleaned for years.
On the streets there was always something to distract, shock or surprise — a familiar building now obliterated or groups of people gathered around holes in the road, where Army personnel had defused an unexploded bomb. One had an unflattering portrait of Hitler chalked on its side and the words ‘return to sender.’ The strange Gothic lettering on the casing particularly caught my attention.

8.
Away from London - even in the depths of the countryside - one was not entirely safe from the vagaries of war. On one of our annual visits to East Anglia where my father’s relatives lived, one warm summer’s evening, with my younger cousin I watched the American B17 bombers limping back from their missions over Germany - many of them badly damaged by German flack. Bits of tail fin missing, a few with one or even two engines out of action, while others emitted a trail of smoke. On this particular evening, we were surprised to witness the crew of one of these planes, bailing out, their parachutes appearing as specks of light — like stars - descending slowly against the deep blue of the evening sky. We next spotted the abandoned bomber - about a thousand feet up — motionless for a split second before tipping, and plunging into a ‘nose-dive.’ Seemingly heading straight for us, emitting a blood curdling, wailing noise, which grew louder until it became deafening, as the aircraft approached the ground. Like some large, fatally wounded animal in terrible pain, it sounded determined to reap revenge before finally dying. My Aunt pushed us both to the ground and lay over the top of us. Paralysed at the thought, yet again, of my imminent demise, I need not have worried. According to a neighbour, the plane missed us with about fifteen or so feet to spare, to land in a ball of fire, in a near by field, taking a few hedgerows with it. In town or country, during the war it was usual for aircraft — allied and enemy - to fly low, at rooftop level, causing alarm, often at night as well as daytime.

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