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This story was submitted to the Peoples War site by Sami Qasem from ´óÏó´«Ã½ London, on behalf of Doreen Payton-McDowall and has been added to this site with her permission. Doreen Payton-McDowall fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

This is a story about an incident that happened to my father during the war.

My brother, sisters and I had been sent away to Somerset in 1939. my mother had gone with us because we were so young. My father stayed in London in our flat in Walworth SE17 because he was in the ARP.

We returned to London in 1941. Shortly after we returned home, during one of the many daytime raids, my father was on duty at their headquarters in Crampton Street School nearby. Our flats were part of a quite large estate and incendiary bombs hit the block at the end. Because we were all at home my fathers officer sent him to make sure that we were all right, which we were, but while he was away, the school got hit and their were many casualties.

The headquarters were moved to a new school just off East Street/Flint Street where it remained for the rest of the war. We moved to Portland Street shortly afterwards as my father was a tailor and he needed a small shop. This was better for him because he was nearer to the headquarters. He was often away for long hours on duty.

We stayed in London until the summer of 1944 when the V2 bombs arrived. My brother and sisters and I were sent to Staffordshire, my brother returned to London as he was in an unhappy billet, but the rest of us stayed away until after VE day. The people we were with in Woodville had a lovely VE party before we returned home.

Our school in London was a short walk along our road. The school in Westmoreland Road still exists but we had to go to another school in Albany Road for our school lunches. This could be quite exciting as we had a few roads to cross, especially when the V1’s and V2’s arrived. On one occasion the all clear went and the teacher in charge at Albany Road School said we could return home if we wanted to. I did so but after a while I heard a noise, looked up and I could see a V2. I ran across the bomb sites and went straight through to the garden where my mother was hanging out clothes. I closed my eyes as it hung in the air thinking, ‘this is it’ — the next moment there was a loud band and a column of smoke rose to my left, it looked like East Street or nearby.

My mother never believed my story, but its something I KNOW happened.

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