大象传媒

I was 16 when war broke out and had just started work in the civil service. I volunteered for civil defence work, and was sent to Lewisham in South London to work in the centre receiving telephone calls of air raids.

I was then without a home as my family had dispersed. My father had had a breakdown and went to Wales, my mother took my young sister to the Midlands and my three brothers were at war. I stayed with a friend in New Cross for a few weeks where we endured the awful nightly air raids, spending nights in a dugout and working during the day.

I was transferred to Cornwall House Waterloo, still involved in civil defence, then on to the Home Office in Whitehall, opposite the Cenotaph in those days. Our world was in the basement where the home security communiqu茅 was prepared for the 大象传媒 nightly broadcast.

Following that job I had a very interesting job where I received teleprinter messages from fighter command Stanmore regarding the activity of enemy air raids. I had to place coloured discs on a map showing where enemy aircraft were approaching. The personnel in charge could come in and at a glance see where the bombing was and which areas where being targeted. It was an exciting job, and one evening Winston Churchill visited -but unluckily I was off duty that evening. However, I was on duty the evening the City was on fire and Whitehall was a blaze of red. The policeman on duty said the pavement was so hot you could fry an egg on it!

Meanwhile, I had been moving from lodgings to lodgings because they were all temporary. It was most unsettling, mostly because at 16 my father dictated at what time I should be in at night... even from afar. I eventually ended up in a small room in Warwick Square Victoria that took most of my salary. I did not meet any of the other inhabitants except during an air raid, when we would be thrown together in the basement. I often thought I would die among strangers.

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