大象传媒

The nearest major target was Croydon Airport surrounded by factories which had switched to producing war material. It was in the August 1940 school holidays that my mother and I went with friends to a favourite picnic spot on Banstead Downs and watched the first attack, from the comparative safety of trenches occupied by Canadian troops camped there. They invited us to join them and supplied us with tin hats and cups of tea. We arrived home to hear that a neighbour had been killed. From that time on, although we escaped the heavy bombing of nearby Croydon and London, the odd plane would empty its bomb racks indiscriminately and we became accustomed to seeing gaps where houses had stood and learning of the deaths or incredibly lucky escapes of people we had known.

Bombs sometimes failed to explode on impact and air raid wardens would attempt to keep count of the sticks of five or ten, trying to discern whether each of the overlapping succession of whistles was punctuated by a thud. If they did not match up, the hunt was on in daylight. Two wardens appeared on our doorstep early one Sunday morning, asking permission to search the garden, and were soon back, having found a suspicious indentation in the vegetable patch. We picked up our packed suitcases (which everyone kept in readiness) and hovered anxiously at a distance while one man attacked the hole with a substantial pole, before being restrained by his cautious companion who stirred gently at the edges with a twig. At this point my father returned from church to mention that he had removed a large clump of rhubarb the day before.

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