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This contribution to WW2 People’s War was received by the Action Desk at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Norfolk. The story has been written and submitted to the website by Rosalie Davis Gibb (Volunteer Story Gatherer) with the full permission and on behalf of Arthur William Stacey.

I was 13 in 1940, living with my parents and 2 sisters in a terrace house about 100 yards from the main gates of RAF Hendon Aerodrome and about the same distance from Colindale Station on the Northern Underground railway.

In late September, returning home from a visit to the cinema, we could see a large plume of black smoke and guessed it was from the East End. The Air Raid siren had sounded as night began to fall. We were more interested in what was for supper when there was a tremendous explosion. The house shook, the windows were smashed, their frames pushed inwards and the blackout material damaged, letting light out.

Within 5 minutes, RAF personnel were outside advising us to take cover in the public shelters in the nearby park. The front door was off its hinges. We stepped outside and were amazed to see dozens of small fires. The whole area — the Aerodrome, the Police sports grounds, were covered — it was just like fairyland. To get to the shelter we had to clamber over a lot of brick rubble. Thankfully the substantial railway building was untouched. We arrived at the first shelter and spent an uncomfortable night. It must have been a single aircraft as there was no follow-up.

The park shelters were Anderson type, about 30ft long and buried to waist depth, with a tunnel at the opposite end to the entrance in case the door was damaged. Dad had to fire watch at his workplace so Mum decided we must take shelter every night. So it became my job to take bedding in my wheelbarrow to claim our spot. This went on for several months until, without warning, there was a tremendous explosion followed by 3 more.

The shelter shook violently, we were thrown about, the concrete floor rose and split in two and in the entrance was a piece of metal. Luckily, my father, who had a habit of looking out, was inside at the time or he would have been beheaded. Still shaken, we gathered our bits together and staggered out only to find the edge of a deep crater barely 3 feet from the shelter. We never went there again. Of the other 3 bombs, 2 fell safely in the grounds of the Police sports ground and the other damaged a house.

With hindsight the park wasn’t a good place to shelter, alongside an electric railway which flashed when the trains passed over points. We should have taken notice when 2 railway workers took shelter with us after they’d been machine gunned.

In 1944, when I was working in London, I was lying in bed one night when a doodlebug came towards the house and the motor stopped. Luckily, the bomb glided over and landed in nearby hospital grounds. Again, we lost most of the glass from the windows.

So far, being bombed is the nearest thing to death I have experienced but one doesn’t think of that at the time.

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