´óÏó´«Ã½

London 1938-39: Saw deep shelters built on Clapham Common and issued with Gas Mask and identity card.

September 1939: Returned from summer holiday with parents after staying with grandmother on the Isle of Wight. Waiting for the train at Waterloo station we noticed the newspaper boards ‘War?’

June 1940: The whole school (Sellincourt Road Infants) marched through streets to the train station. Had to buy a small rucksack for day luggage. Saw corn fields on route. Changed trains at Exeter and arrived in North Devon. At each stop we lined up in the middle of the road and the villagers took who they wanted and those who remained boarded the coach. Those of us not selected were deposited at a holiday camp belonging to a trade union.

We roamed the downs and the cliffs in all directions unsupervised on a daily basis which was a pretty sacred experience. One evening in sept/oct of 1942 my mother appeared to take me home but I did not wish to go. Next day I returned home with Mother. I realised she wanted me to come home as she was lonely as Father was away in India/ Burma in the Army.

Suring air raids we slept in our downstairs neighbour’s coal cupboard under the stairs which was the safest place to be. The ground shook at night from the Z batteries on Tooting Bec Common. Like everyone else when the all clear sounded we walked to where nearby bombs had fallen to watch the rescuers at work.

1944-1945: The grammar school I attended in Tooting Bec gave us the remaining orphans. Days were spent either going to museums with school friends or roaming local streets where V1’s fell and collecting pieces of shrapnel from AA guns. As there was just one surface shelter on our street when the V1’s and V2’s so we placed bunks in our cellars.

1945: I watched convoys of artillery guns heading out of London on the A-24. One day a V2 fell a few streets from our home whilst I was at school. When I came home I found my bed pierced by glass blown out of the windows.

VE Day- We all went to the house that was hit by the V2 and used timber to make a giant bon fire in the middle of the road. Later in the year father returned from Burma suffering from Malaria. He suffered bouts of Malaria for many years to come.

1946: A school friend and I went to watch the Victory Parade. All of central London was scattered with by people.

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