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I went to London by train to visit some friends I knew and when I arrived it hit me how bad the war actually was. On the train platforms only a few feet away from the trains that passed people were sleeping there because they thought there would be more protection sleeping in the train station than at home. This made a great impression on me. When I arrived at my friend鈥檚 house there was a steel table which they had to sleep underneath each night because the air raids in London were numerous and frequent. They had steel tables because in the cities there were no gardens in which to build an Anderson shelter.

In Newcastle air raids were mainly aimed at the ship yards. So to make sure the Nazi鈥檚 couldn鈥檛 bomb the bridges or the ship yards they used these barrels of oil which were set on fire to create smoke so the bridges could not be seen to be destroyed. This was very unpleasant as I had to walk to work through this every morning. They also put up large balloons so the planes couldn鈥檛 dip down to bomb the ship yards, the women would be in charge of looking after them and every so often the balloons would get free and you would see them floating down the quayside with all these women chasing them.

When we were making our Anderson shelters my Grandad said he wanted a ramp so he could just run straight into it if there was an air raid. So we put a ramp in it. When there was an air raid my mother came into mine and my brother鈥檚 room telling us to get up to which I replied 鈥淎w, come on Mam, five more minutes.鈥� Once she had got us up and into the shelter we heard a crash from next door, which was my Grandad鈥檚 house. He had slipped into the Anderson shelter and it was full with water, he had a cold for ages afterward.

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