大象传媒

I was born on the 8th June 1936
My recollections are strongest at the time of the war.
I sensed the anxiety that was present in the early part of the war.
It was a time that I should have started my schooling but my first school Holy Trinity was bombed one Sunday morning killing the school caretaker.
My sister and I stayed in London all through the war although my brother Frank and my elder sister were evacuated
There were periods when all schooling was suspended during the worst of the air raids
We still had to go to Sunday school, it was held in the crypt of St Matthius church every sunday afternoon
I remember looking at a burnt piece of parquet flooring that had been caused by an incendiary bomb that had come through the roof, it had been dealt with by the church warden useing the buckets of sand that had been placed around the church for that purpose. there seemed to be a morbid curiosity at looking at the places that Hitler had left his mark
I remember my brother Gordon who was home on leave from the Navy, we had an air raid and a flying bomb or [doodl bug ]had hit a block of council flats in New Park Road not far from our home. He went round to see the damage, on returning his face was white with shock. there had been a lot killed, this was mainly due to them not taking to the shelters.they had become accustomed to the whaling or the siren and tended to ignore it.
My most vivid memory was the day our house nearly had it .
My younger sister Christen had had chicken pox and had been awake most of the night,
Mum had her asleep in her arms on the sofa opposite our kitchen window.
The air raid siren went and mum sent me down to the Anderson shelter that faced the back of the house, I was to small to pull the heavy metal sheet across the frount of the shelter. I looked out at ground level towardes the back of the house
The now familiar sound of the Doodle bug could be heard coming towards us.
While you could hear this sound you were alright, it is when it cut off then you knew that someone was going to get it.
The flying bomb cut out right above our house
I can see it as clear today, it glided over the houses at the back of us and hit two streets away
The blast hit the back of our house ,the glass in the kitchen and the upsrairs bed room caved in as if an invisible hand had pushed at them,. Dust was the next thing, masses of it obsccuring the back of the house I remember crying mum mum jumping out of the shelter and running into the house.
The curtains in the kitchen were hanging lose from the window frame which had been blown of the wall and was being held up by mums sewing machine
She was still sitting on the sofa with glass all around her but not a cut on her or my sister
Dad who was a jointer on the London Electicity
came home about an hour later, word soon got around if one had landed in your area

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