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My earliest recollection of World War II was of standing with my mother in our flat on the ground floor in Aspinal Road Brockley SE4. I heard a bomb land some way away and murmured slightly. I was four years old and knew all about bombs; they didn’t bother me. The only emotion I recall was indignation when my mother said ‘It’s alright, they’re only practising’. I felt annoyed that she thought I was so dumb I would believe such nonsense. I knew that nobody practised dropping bombs on us. (Mum and I were veterans of bombing as in September 1940, an incendiary bomb had destroyed our earlier home when I was six months old.) I have a fleeting memory of my father at this time, (about May 1944). He had a few days leave from the navy. His ship, HMS Phoebe, had been torpedoed off Cape Noir in French West Africa and repaired in New York. He had bought me a doll and dolls pram from the USA.

A few weeks later I was asleep in the Anderson shelter in our garden. I recall waking as the adults, i.e. my mother, aunt and uncle, piled into the shelter. ‘Christ it’s our!’. My mothers words as she saw the V1 rocket turn and dive straight at us. It was June 29th 1944 and she had taken the precaution of sleeping with me in the Anderson shelter in our garden. The flying bombs as they were called had been dropping on London for several days and my mother had persuaded her sister and brother-in-law who had no shelter to join her each night in ours. They were having supper prior to joining me in the shelter when my aunt heard the drone of the engine before the air raid warning sounded. Her acute hearing saved them all. I remember them rushing into the shelter, waking me up and then the candle going out. My mother’s recollection was more exciting. Once inside the shelter my uncle Wal looked out and my mother leant over his shoulder. She saw the doodlebug and as she watched she saw its tail light cut out. That meant the it was coming down. She saw it turn towards her and knew this time it would not pass over. I remember being nursed in my aunt’s arms as she sat on a chair on the pavement outside our house while mother helped with the rescue work. I wanted to get back to sleep but I couldn’t. The street warden kept offering me orange juice. Strange I thought, who wants orange juice in the middle of the night. Six people where killed in the house behind us. They didn’t have an Anderson shelter. About the same time a mine was dropped round the corner in Revelon Road. It destroyed a large number of houses but fortunately the damage stopped short before it reached my aunt’s house. A school stands on the site now.

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