大象传媒

We weren鈥檛 evacuated. My parents decided that evacuation would be more traumatic than air raids. We should survive or die together. When the blitz started, all the inhabitants of High Cross Court began sleeping in the cellar of Lilian鈥檚, the dress shop that had a side door in our alley. One night, however, incendiaries were dropped and the shop caught fire. Mr Norton, one of our neighbours, panicked and commandeered the staircase, trying to open the trap door but was too agitated to do more than trap us. After that, my father decided that it would be safer to take our chances in the house. So, all through the blitz and the rest of the war, we stayed in our beds, until we were issued with a Morrison shelter in 1944. It was like a large metal cage with a solid top and bottom. It pretty much took up half the floor space in our only living room. When my uncle came to see us, during his leave, he slept on top, which even at the time I thought unsafe. When I saw one in a museum recently, I was amazed how small it was. How did four of us fit into it?

We would count the stick of bombs and if one came very close, we knew we were safe, because the next one would miss us. The nearest, near miss we had, blew the bookcase doors open without damaging them or the books, which were scattered all over the floor. When I went to school, next morning, glass from the shop windows was scattered all over the pavement. Our windows with their black tape crosses on each pane were safe as were the blackout blinds. Sometimes we would stand in the doorway, having turned out the living room gaslight and watch as the searchlights swept across the sky. Every now and again, one would pick out a bomber, which would start the ack-ack, or two fighters, circling each other like two animals each seeking to prove their superiority. My father called it a dog-fight, though I could never understand the connection between dogs and hurricanes.
One morning we found our pet rabbit which the butcher had given us, dead and mum said it must have died of shock during the air-raid, the previous night.

My father would call to my mother
As he raised his hand to the sky
Molly just look at this dog-fight
My mother would go, with a sigh

I too, would go to the doorway
And look at the searchlight and 'plane
But never one dog would I see there
Though I looked and I looked all in vain

Now doodlebugs, they were exciting
We would watch from the yard or the park
And when the buzz bomb stopped buzzing
We鈥檇 run, thinking it quite a lark

Our lessons we had in the shelter
Built in the playground at school
But why were the teachers so frightened
When grown ups were meant to keep cool.

The things I was really afraid of
Were barrage balloons, in the sky
Big, grey, with ears they just hung there
Threatening me from on high

They sparkled and shone in the sunlight
Their shadows loomed large over me.
Mostly they stayed at their moorings
But occasionally one would break free.

Then came the great day of victory
A bonfire was lit on the Green
A scout in a wheelchair sang loudly
And we had a VE Day queen

The V1鈥檚 also known variously as doodlebugs, buzz bombs or flying bombs were slow enough for us to follow with our eyes. Their sound was distinctive and could not be mistaken for anything else. We watched them from our allotment at Broadwater Farm (now notorious as the housing estate where PC Blakelock was murdered) or from our back yard. As long as there was a flame coming emerging from the tail and the characteristic buzzing sound, we were safe, but if it stopped we ran like hell for the shelter. The men from the 鈥榖us garage on the other side of our fence, would watch from the garage roof and I have never seen anyone descend a fire escape or any other set of steps as swiftly as they did. However, this meant that I never actually saw a V1 fall and, of course, No one saw the V2鈥檚 only the resulting mayhem.

From "Slides" by Kate Dunbar (unpublished)

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