´óÏó´«Ã½

This story has been submitted to the website by Eleanor Fell at the Hillcrest Centre on behalf of Margaret McKee, who understand the sites terms and conditions.

During the war, I was living in Park Royal, near an industrial estate in West London. I was about 8 when the war broke out.

I used to play in the Anderson Shelter with my friends because the air raids would go on for hours and hours, so we used to stay down there and play ‘Doctors and Nurses’ and ‘Mothers and Fathers’. One particular day it got to dinner time, and two of the children, Freddy and Audrey, had to go back down to the end of the road for their dinner — so I asked my mum, Ethel Rose, if I could go down with them. She said ‘Yes, but come straight back because the air raid’s on.’ So we all ran down to their house, and as we approached we saw two big removal vans parked outside Freddy’s, because the people next door to him were moving out. We hung around for a little bit over the wall watching what was going on with the removal men.

Suddenly we heard a doodlebug coming in the distance, getting nearer and nearer. My friends, Freddy and Audrey ran indoors to their houses, and I ran into the house where the people were moving out. We always been told at school to press ourselves against a wall — to save being thrown by the blast — and I pressed myself up against the porch wall.

One of the removal men came running back from the van, grabbed me and threw me on the floor in the hall and threw himself on top of me. The bomb hit the removals van, right where we had been hanging over the wall, and there was a huge crater in the road! The house that I was in was wrecked, a lady who was upstairs, came through a hole in the ceiling, covered in blood with a net curtain hanging round her head.

My leg was cut and bleeding, and I remember that my mouth full of grit, glass and blood. There was thick dust and debris all around us. The man picked me up and carried me through the dust and up the road — towards my mother, who was running and screaming up the road. He shouted ‘It’s alright Ma, it’s all right ma — I’ve got her, she’s alright.’ He reunited me with my mother and had his arm around her, as she was crying. I was shaking and shaking and so they got the doctor to me straight away.

He said that I wasn’t to spend another night in London, as I was suffering from severe shock, so we left that day in my Uncle Gilbert’s little red Morgan to my Nan’s in Park Street, near St. Albans in Hertfordshire. One of my aunt’s, Ruby Rose and my cousin, Alan Rose, had also come to stay because they were in Queen’s Park estate near Paddington, which was also being badly bombed.

It was lucky the removal man acted so quickly — as he saved my life, no doubt about it.

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