大象传媒

Because of the risk from air raids, everything was blacked out. There were no streetlamps and all windows and doors had to be covered by thick curtains so as to stop any light getting out.

We were a very busy area here in Medway, because we had all servicemen - navy, army, marines and an air force at Detling, so consequently when the aeroplanes come over we were in the line of fire here. We were really important with regards to the air raids. We used to get quite a bit of attack because they would try to get through to London. They used to come over across from Dover, over here to London and if they couldn't get through to London they'd drop the bombs coming back so as to get rid of them and we would be caught between both ways. It was a little bit hair-raising for a young person because everything was blacked out. When you went out anywhere at night time and there was an air raid you could be ordered into a shelter by a warden, especially if the planes were directly overhead. I remember walking up Chatham Hill during an air raid one evening and standing against the wall outside of the Old Ash Tree public house and watching all the gunfire from the barracks and ships moored on the river. I could feel the wall shaking each time the big guns fired. It was a bit worrying because, apart from the gun flashes, you couldn't see anything but you could hear the planes. It's a strange feeling being in pitch blackness and it's surprising how your other senses take over the work - it helps you understand how blind people must feel. If you went to the cinema, for instance, obviously the main part was dark so that you could watch the film, but the foyer was also dark with just a little bit of red light so that you could see the steps, but when you came out of the cinema you had to stand for a moment or two to let your eyes adjust to the total darkness. Consequently, to this day, I can happily walk around my house with no lights on.

When you got undressed at night you folded your clothes the right way out, and put them in the correct order, so that, if there was an air raid during the night, you could get dressed in the dark and go outside without looking a mess with your clothes on inside out or back-to-front.

Although you could have a torch to see where you were going, it had to be shaded and the light had to be shone down - you weren't allowed to flash it around all over the place. Crosses of sticky tape were put over all windows to help stop them being broken during air raids.

No one died in my factory because fortunately, being at Shorts Seaplane works, we were under the cliff, the aeroplanes had a job to get to us because as they flew over they were on top of the cliff and they missed us. Stirling bombers were made up at Rochester Airport so that became a target for the Germans, I don't think people were killed but several were injured. My sister Elsie was up there and it made them all a nervous wreck for a while. It caused my sister-in-law to have appendicitis, believe it or not, shock that was her after-effects.

As a young person it was a little bit worrying living through an air raid. I wasn't so bad because I had my parents with me at the time. We did used to start off by going down the air raid shelter, but we found we wasn't getting the sleep anyway, so my Dad always reckoned that you were safer in the cellar, which was under the stairs. The safest place in the house is under the stairs, everything else falls down but that doesn't, so if you get under the stairs the chances are it wouldn't collapse on you. So later on we all used to stay indoors because it's damn cold down the air raid shelter. Yes that was it.

My Dad, being an older man, used to do his bit by being a firewatcher. You used to have wardens out on the street. The men that lived on the street, the older men that were left there, all the young men were called up, used to take it in turns to do fire watching. They used to go out and patrol around the local streets looking for fires caused either by the usual things or by incendiary bombs. The bombs were worrying but incendiary bombs were the bits that really frightened people. They then tried to tackle the fire, call the fire brigade, and rescue people. I remember once that he was on patrol at the end of our road when a bomb dropped a couple of streets away. He said the blast knocked him off his feet. You can still see where the bomb dropped in Chalk Pit Hill because there are three or four newer houses in a gap between the original style terraces.

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