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This story was submitted to the People War’s site by Alison Irvine of CSV Media on behalf of William G Duckworth and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions

Plane above our street
We lived on Beckenham Road. I came home from school. I was about 11 or twelve and it was summer. We lived in a flat over an off-licence. It still is an off-licence. I was inside looking out of the window and from my right which is from the direction of Beckenham or Bromley flew by a Sneak Raider going towards Crystal Palace. This was the only time they had come down by Beckenham Road. My mum noticed it first. Children didn’t have the fear then that we have when we’re older. She heard the engine or the machine gun and she said ‘get down’ and we were in the living room and dropped down. A bullet went through my mum’s bedroom window and ended up in her wardrobe and the next door shop which was an oil shop called Rudlands, had a cannon shell in the brickwork. When I went to school I told the other children ‘look what happened to me’ and no doubt exaggerated the story, turning one plane into two as children do.

Sleeping
All of us slept in a shelter called a Morrison shelter, big sheets of steel like a table. It was at the back of the shop. My dad used to say ‘if I’m going to go I’ll go in my own bed’ so he didn’t sleep often in the Morrison shelter.

Playgrounds
Our playgrounds were bomb sites. We’d play anywhere. All children were the same.

School
We stayed in London for all of the war. We once went to stay with my aunt and uncle to Bracknell to give my mum a break. It was for about a month to six weeks. Schooling was interrupted but it didn’t matter. We didn’t want to be evacuated.

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