大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from CSV on behalf of Jim Turner and has been added to the site with his/her permission. Jim Turner fully understands the terms and conditions.

I was evacuated to Kettering in North Hants in 1st September 1939.
I forget the family鈥檚 name but they were the equivalent to Sergeant Major Britain but in civilian life! It was just a man and wife, they had no other sons or daughters. I went there with my two other brothers, Teddy and Harry. I was nearly 9 years old (my birthday on the 11th of September), Teddy was10 and Harry was 6.

I came back to London in December 22nd and stayed through out the blitz.

The blitz was very sad. People sleeping down the tube, bombing everywhere in Kentish Town, without a street untouched.

I remember the bombing in the street where I lived, which was Athlone Street near the piano factories and the railways. Kentish Town was full of factories, piano factories and of course there are five

I remember Dell鈥檚 factory Grafton Road, Kentish Town being bombed, ariel torpedoed. Several killed and injured. One particular man being Darkie Tuvey who lost a leg in the raid. Another friend of mine, Jimmy Russell was killed in Camden High Street in the bombing of Camden Town. About 50 people were killed there.

I saw my first dead bodies in Alcroft Road in Kentish Town, mainly Pioneers (soldiers) and they were clearing a bomb site from a previous raid.

There was often the collection at school halfpenny for floral tributes for death and members killed in the bombing. It was a common thing for a hearse to pass the school with a white coffin in it and the school standing outside. It wasn鈥檛 just the bombings that killed these children, also dipheria and TB and one particular case the girl Nichels died of a swollen hand, infected. All unheard of today.

I was sleeping in my granny鈥檚 Anderson (shelter) behind Hanson Street back of Torrriano Avenue when a bomb fell and kill 6 members of a family just 15 yards away. After the shock and looking at the back of granny鈥檚 house without windows, doors and the beds we would have slept stabbed with shards and shards of glass which would have meant certain death if we had not gone into the shelter. So there is a God after all. Otherwise at 74 I would be able to tell the tale of the old iron pot!

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