大象传媒

Several incidents come to mind: Our houses backed onto the main London to Brighton railway line, and between us and the main line was an exensive siding, usually full of railway carriages. We were told that moonlight shining on the rails showed up well to marauding bombers and as a result the siding came in for attention on several occasions. When incendaries landed on the siding, the local residents, led by the Fire Wardens would use their domestic step-ladders to climb over their rear fences and the spiked railings behind them and attempt to deal with the fires using buckets of water passed across, and stirrup pumps. If the bombers used high explosives, everyone kept his or her head down until the raid was over. I well remember Dad and our next-door neighbour returning after the 'All Clear' one night, roaring with laughter, Apparently they had heard the whistle of falling bombs and had dived for cover in the neighbour's garden, but then found that instead of sheltering against the blast wall in front of our shelter, they had been lying against the neighbour's row of prize geraniums ! Stirrup pumps had been provided by the Civil Defence organisation, and garden hoses were outside most peoples' back doors for use against incendaries. The local Civil Defence post was a new brick-built hut just inside the playground of my primary school, and much to my disgust, although Dad was an area Fire Warden for our street, they wouldn't take me on as a messenger - at seven, they said that I was too young !

After about six weeks of the blitz Dad arranged for mother, my newly born sister and me to be evacuated to the family of an uncle in Oxfordshire. I attended the local primary school during that six weeks, and whenever I see a replica schoolroom in a museum anywhere, it evokes instant memories of the evacuation. The schoolrooms had high ceilings, tall windows, and desks that had iron frames, lift-up lids and were made in blocks of four, with teacher on a slightly raised dias at the front. About twenty four of us crammed into each small school room, and as an outsider from London, I was a bit of an oddity. Unfortunately, my Uncles elderly aunt, with whom we were staying was a bit of a dragon, and unused to the ways of small children and our stay was not a happy one. Mum was desperately unhappy, and after a mere six weeks we left Great Haseley and returned to Streatham where we remained for most of the war. Only in the V bomb attacks did we take refuge in the country again, this time to Stalbridge in Dorset, to stay with Mum's parents. It must have been summer time because I remember helping with the harvest and spending most of my time with the younger brother of the young woman who delivered the daily milk - in churns on the back of a pony cart ! Those weeks, free of school, were some of the happiest I can remember. Phillip was a couple of years older than me, but together we did all his chores on his father's farm, built a tree house, went milking every day and helped with the harvest - and most exciting of all - I was allowed to go with them when they went shooting when the corn was harvested. Pigeon pies and rabbit pies were a real treat after the rationing we had been used to in London. Which reminds me of hours spent queueing outside a tiny pie shop about a mile away from home in Streatham on Thusday mornings at ten o'clock with my mother for delicious, still-hot meat pies which were 'off the ration' with no coupons required. They cost ten pence each. Everybody talked to everyone else in that queue, discussing the latest war news usually. My mother was up to date on all aspects of the Allies campaigns, and we had a huge map on the living room wall with little flags showing the various army positions, and these flags were moved every night after the six o'clock news to update the picture.

Some things were extremely sad however, even to a small boy, and I can remember groups of women gathered at this gate or that, commiserating with the mother of some unfortunate soldier, sailor or airman who had been reported missing or killed in action. Somehow it always seemed to be at the other end of the street, however, and we rarely knew the lads involved. Until a day in 1940 when a telegram arrived at the house next door but one, with the news that a young man I knew well by sight and hero-worshipped I suppose, had been killed in the Battle of Britain. Pilot Officer Kirby.

In the spring of 1944 we were back in London and I sat my 11-plus examination in the school hall - all the windows criss-crossed with adhesive anti-blast tape - and I was lucky enough to pass. That meant another trip, in the care of my Grandmother to a a major Public School to take their entrance examination. This was somewhat un-nerving as we sat the exams and were interviewed in the cellars of the school. Whether or not the school was in session I don't remember, but a flying bomb had demolished half the Science Block, the fives courts, removed the roof from the swimming pool and flattened all the buildings around the Science Block. Science lessons, when I began as a pupil there in September 1944, were held in temporary huts erected on the cleared sites of the fives courts and other buildings, and the swimming pool never had a roof on it even when I left in 1951 !

Of course, bomb damage was a subject of great interest to us boys, and we frequently demanded to be taken to nearby streets to see the damage. A 'land-mine' falling in the neighbourhood aroused huge interest as it involved the first demolitions of houses that we had seen. Our own homes, despite the near-misses on the railway, had suffered nothing worse that incendaries through the odd roof, and blast damage that removed roof tiles and blew out windows. Dad was frequently up a ladder when he returned home at the end of a day's work repairing war damage in other parts of south London, replacing tiles or rigging tarpaulins as temporary cover on neighbours' houses after the previous night's raid. We were extremely lucky - our little terraced house suffered nothing worse than blown-out windows and the odd tile blown off, and the camaraderie between neighbours who (according to my parents ) had rarely spoken to each other previously, was something I still remember. Together, of course, with the huge street party that celebrated VE day ! The street is much as it was sixty years ago, although of course, the original householders are no longer there, but one or two of my primary school friends - now grandparents themselves - still remain in their family homes.
The street party was much as archive pictures depict such parties all over London. Bunting and flags everywhere, trestle tables down the middle of the road with planks between two chairs to make bench-seats for us kids. And most people in some sort of fancy dress ! I clearly recall my own father wearing shorts, a blazer and my school cap and scarf, pounding up and down the pavement on my scooter ! One neighbour was an electrician and had rigged up loudspeakers in the street, so there was music during the feast - to which everyone had contributed - and for dancing in the evening. Even elderly residents came out of doors to watch the fun, and some suffered themselves to be swept into the road by relative strangers to enjoy the dancing ! Dad capped it by producing a box of pre-war fireworks which had been (quite illegally) kept in a cupboard indoors, to finish off the celebrations. Like most other children, I could not recall having seen fireworks before, and this small box provided our first taste.

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