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This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War website by Doreen Bennett on behalf of Dr Brian Kirkpatrick, The author and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

My War by Dr Brian Kirkpatrick

Throughout the Second World War I lived in North London with my mother and sister at 8 Theobalds Avenue North Finchley. As children we were just outside the area of compulsory evacuation and so we could experience some of the war events at first-hand.

We used to watch the dogfights of the British fighters against the German bombers as they came to bomb London and we seemed to be close to the flight path of the doodlebugs (V.ls) which from time to time the fighters would attack and try to shoot down or tip them over with their wing tips so they crashed harmlessly in the nearby fields of what was then the green belt of London.

In the mornings we used to collect the shrapnel with other children from the activities of the night before and on one occasion we took home to our mother an unexploded incendiary bomb with much pride - how horrified she must have been and of course frightened because our father was away at sea in the Royal Navy!

We normally slept under the stairs in a cupboard and rarely in the air raid shelter mainly because it had a foot of water in the bottom of it; also of course in the blackout there was no light so it was not an attractive prospect. The lighting of the house was by gaslight and so when we came home from school we sat huddled together on the stairs waiting for someone to come to light the house as we could not reach the controls of the gaslight and presumably were not permitted to play with matches. We used to spend hours looking at the sky watching the dogfights and the vapour trails of the aircraft and at night the flickering flames to the south where London was burning. I realise now that the amazing sunsets and cloud formations we saw was a direct result of smoke and dust and from the frequent fires which occurred during the bombing. Sometimes if we were out or away from the home and the air raid sirens sounded we would go to the Underground stations where the platforms were fitted with rows of folded metal beds which hinged down from the walls usually with one single blanket; some people stayed for days or weeks, since the stations were near their home. An air raid siren still makes the hackles on my neck come up whenever I hear one.

When I was 8 years old with my 5 year old sister our mother sent us down a path to the nearby underground station to meet our father and standing there were two men in Royal Navy uniforms and we did not know which was our father. In his kit bag he had bananas and a pineapple; things we had never seen before.

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