大象传媒

In 1939 I was six years old. At the rear of our house was an area of waste ground that had once been a pond but was now filled in with rubble. In t this field where we all played the usual games of Cowboys and Indians and an increasing number of "actions" against the fresh enemy, the Germans.
In one corner of this field was the wooden body work of a derelict London Transport single bus.
How it was dumped there I do not know.
However my father and the other able bodied men in the six households in the terrace where I lived, decided that this derelict presented an opportunity to develop as a communal air raid shelter.
They dug a wide trench about three feet deep and proposed to roll the body of the bus across the field and to place it in the pre dug hole.
This exercise took place one Sunday afternoon in 1939 and I witnessed the event watching it with my Mother from my bedroom window.
Her distress at seeing my father involved in this operation whilst wearing his best suit had to be experienced.
The bus was then covered with the earth from the hole and the inside made habitable and waterproof. One of the neighbours was a carpenter who worked at Smithfield Meat Market. He seemed to have access to sufficient tongue and groove boarding to line the "shelter" together with some stout 4 x 4 timbers to shore up and strengthen the roof. In one corner were two bunks built for myself and the girld next door together with a curtain for privacy at one end for the bucket for the usual purposes.
here were steps cut to gain access and the shelter was lit by an oil lamp which I now have on my sidboard.
The shelter was christened "The Bandwagon" after the radio show starring Arthur Askey.
We spent many nights in the Bandwagon and although it would have afforded little protection against any close bomb, it is clear to me now that the adults gained much comfort from just being together.
After the war my father and I rescued the timbers from the Bandwagon and as far as I know they are still lining the loft of the house where I was born and which we lived.
There is no trace of the site now. It is beneath the foundations of a large comprehensive school.

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