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This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from CSV on behalf of Anonymous and has been added to the site with her permission. Anonymous fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was a short hand typist at an estate agents. Then I volunteered as an ARP warden with my father when I was 19, (1938) and delivered gas masks to householders in Hampstead. If they were not in, they went to the town hall to collect them. We used to have exercises, and practice casualties. I went to Fleet Road School one evening. The men were put in a different room from the ladies in the school hall. There was an editor from the Nursing Mirror and she instructed us how to cope with childbirth in an air raid! In fact, later in the shelter, somebody did after having a baby just 2 weeks before during the raids. The sirens would go off automatically at 6 o’clock, the Germans were like clockwork in 1940. We were given instruction on coping with gas attacks:

PHOSGENE smells like Musty Hay,
CHLORINE is like Bleach:
Peardrops come from K.S.K
Quite distinctive each.
Faces itch at C.A. P.,
D.M grips the nose;
Bitter sweet is B.B.C.,
Teardrops Eyelids close.
Garlic mean’s that MUSTARD’S free,
Thought Oniony by some;
LEWISITE we all agree,
Is like Geranium.

We were also given handbooks such as ‘ Air Raid Precautions Handbook’ : The Duties of Air Raid Wardens.

The war came on 3 September 1939. There was an air raid shelter in Garnet House, Upper Park Road, and that became a warden’s office and a shelter. I spent my 21st birthday party looking after the people in there and taking their names during a raid.. The baker’s shop made me some cakes, and the shelter people gave me a gold cross for a present. My sister bought me a gold chain to go with it. My parents bought me a gold watch. The air raids were on. We used to have a look round the streets to make sure that people had drawn their curtains and observed the blackout. It was complete darkness.

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