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I was born in August 1938. I could only have been about three years old, maybe not even that......

My Mum always said that my brother Raymond joined the Navy before he was old enough. I don’t think authorities were very particular about age in those days.

When Raymond came home on leave he brought me presents. First time it was a flat box, not sure what was in it; second time it was two tiny wobbly men with lead bases, he called them Flotsam and Jetsam – I still have them.

He hadn’t been in the Navy long when they asked for volunteers for a ship which was to be a decoy and which wouldn’t come back. Raymond volunteered.

When he kissed Mum goodbye at the front gate, he said ‘The ship won’t come back Mum, but I will.’

Either on the news on the radio or in the daily paper, there were often reports of injured people in hospital who they couldn’t identify. After Mum and Dad got the telegram to say Raymond was missing, Dad would always go out on his push bike and cycle for miles to visit any hospital which had service people who they couldn’t identify, but it was never Raymond.

We lived in Walthamstow, East London, and roads nearby were bombed, but we were lucky. The doodlebugs were the worst although my other brother told me that as long as you could hear them go over, you were alright. We still held our breath though when the engine stopped, and some times the house shook when the bomb landed. A glass chandelier fell onto my Mum’s dressing table, just missing a lovely glass powder bowl with lid – I still have that bowl.

For a little while we went to stay with my Gran in Benfleet, Essex, and I remember
seeing the doodlebugs flying towards London. Mum was worried in case Dad got hurt but we were all alright, except Raymond. After Raymond got killed Mum’s leg started hurting and she always said that she believed Raymond had got trapped by his leg, and that was why he never came home.

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