大象传媒

I was born in Fulham in 1938. My father worked as a cashier/supervisor in one of the London Clubs and my mother was usually in some sort of cleaning job, having been in service during her younger days.

We moved about London a few times and my recollection of the war started in Balham when we lived in a flat at 2 Carmenia Road. I know we had been bombed out twice, the last in Effingham Street, Victoria, before moving to Balham.

At the outbreak of war my father was required to join the police war reserve as he was unfit for miltary service. This was in addition to his daily work which he had to fit in with the demands of being a war time policeman working out of Cannon Row Police Station. His beat included Buckingham Palace, Downing Street and Trafalgar Square.During the course if his duty he met the King and Queen and Winston Churchill.

We were evacuated twice, each time accompanied by my mother, the first occasion to one of the lodges at Ascot racecourse and subsequently, in 1940, to Shripney, Near Bognor Regis in West Sussex where my younger brother was born.

When living in Balham we were regularly in the house cellar.As things got worse we went to the local shelter but later slept in the underground at Trafalgar Square station - I can well remember the noise of the trains, the heat and thirst with not enough water for all the family.

Every morning after an air raid my elder brother and I would hunt for bomb shrapnel which was usually still hot to handle.

I think the worsat part of the war for me was the start of the V1 rockets, or doodlebugs as we knew them. Often I would be out playing in the street and hear the sound of a rocket. I would the start to run for home, panicking when the rocket's engine cut off - knowing that it would now come down. It was a frightening and common daily occurrence.
One day in 1944 my father had just left in his police uniform to catch a bus to work, when a V1 came over, cut its engine and then started to descend. My mother brothers and I went to the cellar where we heard the explosion very close by. On coming ou we werecovered in coal dust and the house was in disarry. The window frames on the back of the house had been blown in onto the furniture and there was soot everywhere. Wallk paper was hangin off and i can remember shouting hysterically to my mother "you must get the decorators in". I was then all of 6 years old.

My father, waiting at the bus stop. sawc the V1 go down and feared the worst, running home to find us standing outside at the all clear.

We were taken to Cannon Row Police station where we spent the night sleeping in one of the cells. The road at the rear had been wiped out so we were just so lucky but others were not.

The next day my father began emptying what he could from the house and we all went back to Shripney by train. I can still remember seeing my first live cow!

Two days later, the house received a direct hit and we lost many of our possessions including my rocking horse.

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