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This story as submitted to the People’s War site by Nick Chamberlain from Age Concern Sevenoaks and District has been added to the website on behalf of Peter Beaumont with his permission and they fully understand the site’s terms and conditions.

I was born on the 25th January 1938 in Woolwich at Woodstreet Home for British Mothers and Babies.
At the time my mother and father had a brand new 3 bedroom semi-detached house bought in 1928 for £600 at Bostal Heath, an area in which there later many anti-aircraft guns.

Just after the war started my house received a great deal of blast-damage when the house next door took a direct hit. We all had Anderson Shelters in the garden and each time the sirens warned of danger we moved straight into them. Luckily no-one was ever hurt when the house was hit.

After this we had to be re-housed — from there we were moved to a house in Plumstead, in the rear of a bomb-damaged house. At the front of the house, it was used as a council office and although we lived in the back of the house I wasn’t allowed in the front.

At about the same time, when I was 2 years old, I had bronchitis and nearly died. The school across the road had blast shelters under the playground — you’d go down steps with a corrugated iron roof until you were about 10ft underground. At the other end of the shelter there was an iron ladder going up and a handle which you wound to open a trapdoor in the roof — this was the way out if a bomb closed off the other entrance/exit. There were double bunk beds on either side and no heating as far as I can recall. And the shelter smelt strongly of strong disinfectant. These were used for the duration of the war.

I recall one evening my Mum and Dad were out and my Aunt was looking after us. When my parents returned a family argument began over whether or not I should have received a hot drink. As a result my parents and I went to sleep in the house where my father turned a settee over for us to sleep under. This was my new sleeping place for the next few months as my father objected to going back to the shelter.

Living in Woolwich we regularly saw air attacks due to the Royal Docks being on the opposite side of the Thames and a tempting target for the German Air-force. On occasion we’d look up to the skies and see Spitfires apparently attempting to divert the German doodlebugs away from the crowded residential areas and into the river.

Dad used to take me to the woods on Bostal Heath to watch the searchlights looking around for German planes. We could only get so far because of the security though — all the rumours of spies made people very cautious in the area.

One memory I have is of the graveyard at St Nicholas Church at Plumsted receiving a direct hit from a V2 rocket one night. I was indoors being washed by my mum at the time but was quickly pushed under the table by my mum when the explosion sounded. The next day we went to look at the damage and inside the church there was a big crack along a large tomb and, the big kids had broken into the coffin — when we went to play one of my friends removed the skull from the coffin and we started to throw it to each other. We used to fight with the bones and swordfight with them — it sounds horrible now but it was what we did as kids! We use to make camps in the graveyard and dare the girls to walk through at night.

My elder cousin was evacuated to Gloucester where he had to work on a farm. Unfortunately, the people with whom he was staying beat him and, after a letter back to my Aunt, he soon returned to London. My parents immediately decided that I would stay with them at home.

By the time the war ended I was 7 years old and they had the VE street party to celebrate the end of the war against Germany. However, I wasn’t able to celebrate as I had pneumonia, although the doctor suspected it may have been meningitis. There weren’t many drugs available for civilians although children were taken care of. One person in particular who took care of me was a local Jewish man who had a stall and a shop selling mainly fruit and vegetables. He used to bring my mother fruit and vegetables to help me get better. He’d been attacked before the war by the faschists (black shirts), those sympathising with Hitler’s aims.

I stayed in bed and had to imagine everyone else celebrating. However, I did manage to celebrate on VJ day when the war with the Japanese ended.

Later on I was conscripted to the Royal Engineers where I saw service in Kenya

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