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This story was submitted to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People’s War site by Wymondham Learning Centre on behalf of the author who fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Between September and Christmas 1940 the bombers flew each night and each night we stood on the lawn at the back of our house watching the destruction, not only of London, but also of places like Finchley, Kilburn and many other areas adjacent to the City.

The German planes had an unmistakable uneven beat and we were all quite convinced that they used a large gasometer, situated about a half or three-quarters of a mile behind our house as a marker, before turning to start or finish their bombing run. In the event, the sound of those engines was terrifying. Any load left over ‘surplus to requirements’ was dumped on Pinner or North Harrow, or that is how it appeared to us waiting for the next almighty crash, which spelled doom for some poor soul.

An oil bomb destroyed a house in a road adjacent to West End Avenue, a long way to reach by road comparatively speaking, but in terms of actual distance only, say, four hundred yards from our house. The noise was desperate. Astonishingly, all the windows in the upstairs rooms flew open but were unbroken. An unexplained incident of the pit of hell behaviour of bomb blast. The likely lads, viewing the result next morning, saw the whole building covered in black stinking oil which had failed to ignite. It looked like the end of the world had really come. Poor people!

We experienced an unexploded bomb dumped at the bottom of the avenue and watched the Pioneer Corps steaming out the charge, all the while leaning over the hole making encouraging remarks to the poor soldiers wielding shovels to get it clear for hauling safely away. No ‘Health and Safety’ in those days mark you, unexploded bombs and other hazardous items were treated with suitable contempt by the young. Nobody bothered much — we certainly did not!

There were other bombs, which, I regret, I can only half remember.

The backcloth to all this mayhem were the anti-aircraft guns which sounded off at intervals with much noise but little success. One was based somewhere in the village and there was also one on the back of a railway flat truck, which went up and down the line letting off resounding bangs at infrequent intervals and seemed noisier than the rest. Shrapnel rained down all over the place, something we chose to ignore after a while, but a nosecap was held to be a considerable prize and could even be swapped for a bomb fin if you could find a willing vendor. (Be careful not to burn your fingers when you pick it up!)
Then there were the searchlights. They often caught the bombers in their beams and as soon as this happened others joined them so the hapless plane was held in a triangle of light to be blasted by all the guns in the area.

So … that’s how it went on for month after month after month. Forever — or so it seemed.

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