大象传媒

I was quite a lonely boy during the war, my mother and sister were both on war work, my father was dead and didn鈥檛 go to school because they shut the schools so in the daytime all I could do was to wander about all day looking at all the houses that had been bombed, and of a night we used to go down the air-raid shelter. This was 1940 and the air-raids started day and night, in the morning the air-raid warden used to come in the shelter and say 鈥測ou stay there a while鈥�, and he said to my mother 鈥測ou have no home to go to it鈥檚 been bombed鈥�. So they had to find us a new place to live.

The bombs seemed to follow us around because three times now our home got bombed, as we lived not far from the docks. The docks in question are West India and East India also we were near the city of London. The raids got so bad we did not take our clothes off for six weeks or so, also food was very hard to get. Most times we lived on bread and marge, Sunday it was bread and jam. One Saturday I was with my mum queuing outside the butchers' shop there was always a long queue and sometimes when you got to the butcher鈥檚 shop he would say sorry nothing left, if you were lucky you might get two slices of corn beef and one sausage, or even bacon bones. Anyway this day we were queuing at the butchers shop and as I looked up at the sky the next minute we were being fired at and the people started screaming 鈥� a plane came out of the clouds and started firing at us.

Opposite our shelter there was a caf茅 run by Italians, and one of the Italian sons would run over and get us some tea and what he could to eat, this lad stuck his neck out a few times being shrapnel was coming down and bombs.

One morning I remember very well because the all clear had just gone and my mum was talking to a sailor, he was saying to her he would have to stay in the shelter until the buses started to run. With that my mum said 鈥測ou can鈥檛 stop here, come home with us until the buses start鈥�. I will always remember this because as we came out of the shelter he took hold of my hand, when came out of the shelter the first thing that hits you is the smell of cordite and brick dust.

After the Blitz there was a lull in the raids, then about late 1942/early 1943 the raids started again. One Tuesday night we were in a shelter and this old lady came running in with her husband, she was so excited she said out loud 鈥渨e have hit him, he鈥檚 all on fire鈥�. We did not know it then but this was the start of the V-1 flying bomb.

One Sunday about 11am a raid started, my mum said to me 鈥測ou go to the shelter we will come down later鈥�, I did so there was just one lady there in the shelter, it was all quiet for some time. Then the lady said she was thinking of going home, as she was about to leave we heard a flying bomb coming, then the engine cut out - seconds later there was this big bang, we were both thrown to the floor.

I do not know which was the worst, the shrieking of bombs falling down on you in the Blitz in 1940 or the rattling sound of the V-1 or the silent killer the V-2 rocket.

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