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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Graham Lewis for Three Counties Action on behalf of Mr William Wilson and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Wilson fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I was born in Shepherd's Bush in 1935. I was evacuated for the first time early in the war to Somerset with my mother who was then expecting my brother, David. He was born on the farm where we were billeted. My father was engaged in war work at Fairey Aviation. We had a good time in Somerset — lots of good food and home cooking and baking.

Back in Shepherd's Bush when the blitz eased, we found roads were being made with logs covered with tarmac. When a bomb fell on these roads, the logs were loosened and thrown up. We collected these logs, cut them up and made them up into bundles of firewood which we sold at tuppence-halfpenny each.

Coke was the only form of heating we had. The children used to go to the coke factory to collect it. Each child was allowed 28 pounds of coke.

I went to five different schools in Shepherd's Bush.

Our second evacuation was to Sheffield after the doodlebug rockets started to be sent over the south of England. There it was difficult to find a billet: people did not want a lady with two young children. Our life was not happy there as it had been in Somerset. We were picked on in school and there were regularly fights with local boys. The lady of the house where we lived said that my brother, aged two-and-a-half at the time, was the image of her son who had been killed as a fighter pilot. She used to give strawberries and other treats to my brother, but nothing to me. She became excessively possessive towards my brother, to such an extreme extent that my grandfather had to come to take us back to the London area. We were near Wormwood Scrubs where there were German and Italian prisoners of war.

Back in London the rockets were raining down. We went to school carrying gas masks. In school we had a concrete shelter. One day my mother, father, brother and I heard a doodlebug rocket overhead. We heard the engine stop, which was the moment when it dropped and exploded. It hit the steeple of St John’s church. My grandfather was an air raid warden and we lived with him in St Anne’s Road. After the rocket exploded my grandfather came upon a woman who was naked as her clothes had been completely blown off. However, she and her child were unharmed.

I accidentally broke an alarm clock at home and in order to be able to get another one my Dad had to take me to the local police station to sign a statement that I had indeed broken it. Bomb timers could be made out of alarm clocks so the police were wary about them. Radios in homes could be switched on automatically from a central remote control point to broadcast air raid warnings and all-clears.

After the war my brother and I got tuberculosis. We were sent to Wood Lane Open Air School. Lessons took place in the open air. We lived at home, had breakfast and dinner at the school, and an hour’s sleep there every afternoon. My brother was sent on to Carshalton because they could not cure it at Wood Lane.

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