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WORLD WAR II MEMORIES

My parents and I lived in Thornton Heath near Croydon.

One of things my mother told me about was pushing me in my pram along Thornton Heath High Street when a plane strafed the street with machine gun fire.

My father was in the Fire Service and was based at local fire stations. I remember him telling me about a couple of experiences he had - two of the fire stations he served at received direct hits and at one of the stations the bed he would have been sleeping on was destroyed by a the cast iron radiator which was blown across the room by the force of the blast. Another time he had just walked through Thornton Heath Recreation Ground when he had to throw himself into the gutter when a doodle-bug came over.

We had a doodle-bug route right over the house where we lived and I remember one came down in the next road and destroyed about three houses killing a woman. Some nights my mother and I slept downstairs in the front room when there was a lot going on.

I have two vivid memories of the war.

One was going down to the air-raid shelter we had at the bottom of the garden where we had a paraffin lamp and when I come across that distinctive smell I can close my eyes and be back in the shelter.

The other vivid memory is towards the end of the war. It was Sunday lunchtime and the warning siren went. We had a really solid draw-leaf dining table and I got my stool and my lunch and went under the table. Even though absolutely nothing happened, I stayed under the there and would not come out until the all clear sounded, I think I was about seven years old at the time.

I don鈥檛 remember life being interrupted to a great degree even though we lived so close to London and, at times, had a lot going on overhead.

Mrs Ena R Webber, 3 Walcott Avenue, Christchurch, Dorset BH23 2NQ

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