大象传媒

I was born in West London on one of the last days of the blitz in 1940. I had already made a 鈥渇alse start鈥� which precipitated a journey to the hospital during an air raid, and, according to an aunt I was not very popular! My father worked in the dairy industry and had to remain in London and my mother and I went to various relatives in the country, to Walton on the Hill, to Hampshire and finally and for most of the war to my grand parents Leicestershire. In 1944 when the German bombing seemed to be largely over my father suggested we could go back to Fulham. However, there was a raid one night soon after we arrived but not expecting it to be serious we sheltered under the stairs rather than go down to the Anderson shelter in the garden. I have a picture in my mind of sitting on my mother鈥檚 knee in the coal cellar under the stairs. The raid was in fact a major attack, rumour had it that they were trying to hit Montgomery鈥檚 HQ in St Paul鈥檚 School not very far away. About six houses in the street were destroyed and some families totally wiped out. For several years after the war I played on the bomb site with the other kids in the street. Unlike many other children who remained in London for most of the war, that one experience left me with nightmares of bombers coming over in great fleets (I can picture them now in my mind) and these went on for a number of years. Also, I took a long time to get used to the sound of my mother鈥檚 Hoover as it reminded me too much of an air raid siren.
The war was often a topic of conversation amongst my adult relatives. An uncle and aunt lived across the road from us in Fulham and stayed in our Anderson shelter. After one raid my father went to see if there was any damage. He returned with the news that a fire-bomb had come through the roof of their flat, though they managed to put it out in time. Later on it was hit again and my aunt described how the curtains had been sucked up the chimney by the blast. Most houses received some damage and for years after the war the roof of our flat leaked, despite a number of attempts to repair it.
The same aunt seemed to have had a number of lucky escapes. On one occasion she was walking down Woodlawn Road in Fulham and ahead of her was a horse-drawn milk float. Suddenly the milkman shouted to her to get down, which she did, ending up in the gutter; she was just in time as a lone, low-flying German aircraft passed overhead machine-gunning along the road. I think it may have damaged the milk float but she heard on the radio later that day that a German fighter had been shot down after shooting at pedestrians in Fulham 鈥� 鈥渢hat was me!鈥� she said proudly! On another day when standing on Wimbledon station she was told to get down on the tracks in an air-raid. Later in the war she was on a train also leaving Wimbledon when a V1 appeared, causing the train-driver to slow down while he kept the doodle-bug in view just in case its engine stopped and it came down.
Five uncles were in the armed forces and came back with their various stories, either of immense boredom, such as manning a decoy search-light, or of moments of excitement. One of them was an anti-aircraft gunner in the dark days of Malta鈥檚 isolation. They were short of ammunition and one gun in four was not allowed to fire but was still manned. My uncle, a lance-corporal in charge of the Bofor鈥檚 gun, saw that they had a German aircraft directly in their sights and so issued the order to fire. The aircraft was hit and came down but this did not prevent my uncle from being reprimanded because his gun was supposed to be a 鈥渟ilent gun鈥� and should not have fired. During their inactive moments one of his mates, who had been a stonemason, carved an ornament for each of the men in the local stone depicting the Maltese cross, the letters GC for George Cross and a three-penny bit inserted into a small recess; we still have this piece of 鈥渢rench art鈥�.
Another uncle gave me a German dagger that he must have taken from a prisoner or dead body; it had the man鈥檚 name engraved on the blade. In my wanderings around the streets of Fulham after the war I wore it on my belt. No one seemed to object and fortunately I never got into any trouble as a consequence of carrying this weapon.
Even though children of my age were too young to know much of what was going on, the war had a profound influence on one鈥檚 view of the world. One little girl who, on hearing the rejoicing that it was all over said: 鈥漛ut I don鈥檛 want it to be over鈥�. I recall journeys across London when there were still many black and damaged buildings surrounded by bomb sites on which were growing golden rod and rose-bay willow herb. When they began re-building I kept wondering why they were doing it 鈥� surely it would only be bombed again the next time round?

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