大象传媒

I was 17 when the war broke out and living at home with my parents in a council flat in Shepherds Bush. At the age of 18 one was required to register for National Service and then to select which branch of the armed forces you wished to join. To my surprise, having been quite healthy, I was told by the chairman of the examining board I attended that I would be hearing eventually from them. I had been quite free of any illness and was very surprised at this. In those days of course, it was not customary to question those in authority as it would be today. Subsequently I was asked to attend at the Chelsea Hospital for women (!). This section had been taken over by the army and I was given a heart examination. Again I was given no information until I was then asked to go to Sir Archibald McMahon who was an eye specialist in Mayfair for an eye test. I had worn spectacles since I was 9 years old with no difficulty. Eventually all I received through the post was a card stating that I was Grade IV and unfit for military service. I then went to our old family doctor as I was very concerned and he said there is nothing wrong with you at all lad but although I know how you now feel in days to come you'll probably be very pleased that this has happened. I was very concerned never the less because my brother and all my friends had all joined up. I was working as an administrator for J Lyons at Cadby Hall in Kensington and decided that I must do something. As a result of seeing an advertisement I volunteered for the fire service and had to go to a school in Eberington Street in Fulham for an examination and was passed A1 fit for fire fighting. Eventually I was assigned to a part time fire station in High Street Acton. This was a subsidiary station and was manned entirely by people like myself who worked during the day and became firemen during the night (not every night). Most of the people here were engineers in reserved occupations or lorry drivers etc. One of the tasks which had to be done was to man the control room and most of my friends found this very daunting. Because of my job I was quite happy to do this and came to an arrangement with our commanding officer that in return I would always be assigned to the first appliance to leave on a task. I did this for the remainder of the war and the system was that, although we were not in east London where the bulk of the bombing took place units were moved in to take the place of others engaged and so we often found ourselves in the Western London area. The nature of fire fighting in the war will be well known and so I will not go into great detail. There are two major incidents I might record. The first was at the fuel oil depot in Townmead Road in Fulham. The depot had been attacked by incendiary bombs and the underground storage tanks were on fire. Water was being pumped into the tanks to bring the burning fuel to the surface and this was then hosed into the river Thames. Two large Kapok dams had been laid across the river to contain the burning fuel which was then extinguished with foam. Whilst this was happening the raid continued with high explosive bombs. The job which I and some colleagues were given was to roll out of the depot quite a number of full forty gallon drums of oil and to disperse these in the adjoining streets for safety. I think this was probably one of the most frightening experiences I had. There were many others but one in particular occurred late on in the war. I'm not too certain of the particular date but one evening I had reported as usual at about 6pm. There was no air raid in progress but one of our appliances was ordered to an incident. (A very large explosion). In Stavely Road. On arrival we found a large crater and a number of damaged houses and as far as I know no one was killed. There was no other activity but we were asked to stand by for well over an hour. Eventually a couple of cars arrived with men in black suits who clambered into the hole and picked up various items which they put into little boxes to take away. We returned to the station to sleep which we did in a dormitory in our clothes just minus jackets and shoes. At 3am the bells were pulled down and we were assembled in the appliance room by a divisional officer. He told us that we would undoubtedly be questioned about this incident and he could tell us that it was a gas explosion. Very soon this experience was repeated because what we had attended was one of the first V2 rockets. These were often referred to as 'Flying Gas Mains'.
It is difficult now to recall the stress but conditions of communication were far more primitive than they are today and I remember always walking home after a night duty hoping that my home and parents would still be there. Our home was very near to Wormwood Scrubs on which was mounted and anti aircraft battery. When this was in action during a raid the blast from these guns was strong enough to cause our curtains to flap up to the ceiling even though the black out was in place. We had one of the Anderson Shelters in our back garden which we did use initially but, especially in the winter these tended to fill with water so it was much more convenient to remain indoors. It amuses me now to recall that many of the neighbours used to gather in our flat which was on the first floor and would have been quite useless if a bomb had landed anywhere near. Other people will no doubt recall the exigencies of food supplies, rationing etc. but I still wonder at how my mother managed to feed us with what was available. I suspect that she probably went without herself. One other recollection I have is that during one raid bombs fell on the railway which ran at the back of our home. I saw one fall in the path of a goods train which was approaching and the engine tipped into the hole with the following carriages piling up after it.
Another point I might mention is that my father was an inspector on the permanent way and was often himself on night duty as part of an emergency arrangement to repair track and sometimes platform damage in his area. This was quite important because he worked on what was called the 'West London Joint Railway' which was a link between the Southern region and the Northern and Eastern regions, avoiding the main line terminals and it was essential to maintain this for wartime supplies to move around.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.