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15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

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A Childs Experience Of War

by SpivLuckyJim

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Archive List > Childhood and Evacuation

Contributed by听
SpivLuckyJim
People in story:听
James Thomas Semple
Location of story:听
Bexleyheath Kent/Woolwich London
Background to story:听
Royal Air Force
Article ID:听
A1949970
Contributed on:听
02 November 2003

I was born in October 1934, and started school at the age of five one month after war was declared at Tod Infants School, as that was nearly sixty five years ago its not easy to recall all that went on but, certain things I will never forget.
One evening very early in 1940 just prior to my father being called up to join the forces, a mine dropped in a small woods (Bursted Woods) I can remember the sound of the explosion until this day, my father explained that a mine was about as big as a telephone box dropped on a parachute and packed with explosives, part of the crater of that mine still exists today. Sometime later, I was on the way back from school in the afternoon when I met my mother we had just reached the top of our road when a plane flew over low you could here the scream of a bomb as it was falling, my my mother through me on the ground aginst a wall and got on top of me to shield me, the bomb fell a quarter of the way down our street
outside a bungalow of a family named Godbolt,
the wall my mother had thrown uas agianst just fell over, yes it went the other way not on top of us. My worst experience was when I had arranged to meet my Mother during the school lunch break to buy a new pair of shoes, my school Bexleyheath Secondary Modern was only 5 minutes from the school and my mother worked in the Shops at Collins the cleaners, which was siuated in Watling Street (the Old Roman Road. Watling Street was so straight you could see for a long way. After buying the shoes we walked out of the shop and at the top of the street above the clock tower you could see this aeroplane flying fast and very low, we thought it was a Spitfire when all of a sudden it opened fire, my mother pushed me in a shop doorway, many people were killed in the street, and it straffed the cinema in the main road (The Regal) which on a Wednesday afternoon (which this was) used to have half price addmission for pensioners ( known to day as senior citizens) many of those died as well.

Late in 1942 women who's husbands were at war and only had one child had to find a minder and get a full time job, I went to stay with my grandmother ( a wonerfull person)In Woolwich London and my mother went to work in Woolwich Arsenal making bullets/shells working ten & twelve our shifts, I stayed with my grandmother in the week and went home weekends.
I should also mention that as well as working twelve our shifts, she was made leading fire warden for our area often runing around in the middle of the night organising the rest in the area with their Stirrup Pumps and buckets of sand, this was to put out incendary bombs

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