´óÏó´«Ã½

Our first sign of war was when an Anderson shelter was delivered and duly installed at the bottom of our garden. That was 1939 when I was 20. It was reasonably kitted out with bunk beds, a paraffin stove and electric light.

Our house was on the direct flight route into central London and as soon as an air raid siren sounded, my parents, brother and I took our small packed bags, with change of clothes etc and went down into the shelter. We played cards or suchlike and my mother had a basket of food and flasks of hot drinks. There we remained until the ‘all clear’ sounded, which varied from night to night (over 2000 of them) including false alarms. We could tell the difference between out aircraft and the pulsating drone of the enemy bombers, wondering whether we would be their next target tonight.

The next problem was getting to my office in the city with air-raid warnings during the journey by bus and train.

Our house did not actually receive a direct hit, thank heaven, but sometimes we felt the ground shake when a large bomb was dropped. In the nearest blast our windows were blown in, ceilings came down and the roof was damaged. The latter being covered with a tarpaulin for many weeks.

My mother was very ill at the time and was eventually hospitalised in London. We used to visit her in the evenings and during our journey on the tube, saw families camped out for the night on the station platforms, with vendors selling drinks and snacks. They were mostly a cheerful lot, singing songs and playing games to wile away the time before trying to get some sleep.

Sometimes the underground trains were stopped and we were all turned out, completing our journey on foot. I often found streets blocked by fire engines and bomb debris. On one such occasion a girl and I had to crawl on our hands and knees under obstacles as our route had been cordoned off and it was the only way through.

At weekends in the early years I used to travel all over the country to visit my fiancée, later husband, who was in the London Scottish Regiment, guarding beaches or Battle of Britain airfields. When he was drafted overseas, sailing from Liverpool, I went with him as far as Sheffield where we spent our last night together in a hotel. The next morning on the news I heard that the Duke of Kent had been killed.

I think that one of the most upsetting things that affected me was towards the end of the war when almost the last V2 rocket launched came over near our house. There was a terrific bang and we discovered that it had landed just a short distance away on a house where a good friend of mine lived. I hurried around there and was horrified to find an enormous crater where the house had stood — not even a ruin, just nothing. I knew that Olive, an actress and comedienne, who often entertained the troops, would have been under the table shelter with her cocker spaniel, but of course both had totally disappeared.

Then, to my horror, I saw her husband, who had been at work, coming towards me. What do you say in a situation like that?

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.