大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Emma Hart from AGC Museum Winchester on behalf of Peter G Moody and was added to the site with his permission. Mr Moody fully understands the site's terms and conditions. This is a continuation of his story.

At this stage of the war, both of my older brothers were in the Forces. Fred had been called up into the Navy; Len later joined the Fleet Air Arm, where he served for a good number of years. I remember Fred coming home for his first leave, just after his basic training. He arrived one day, late, as he had been held back in camp to learn how to swim! As a young child, Fred had been very ill and had spent some time in a convalescent home, the doctor said he was not allowed to go swimming. Being so ill was the reason Fred had been allowed to go with the Jones family hop picking, as it was thought the country air would be good for him.

The Navy taught Fred how to listen for German U-boats when his ship was on escort patrol with a convoy. On Fred's next home leave he bought presents for everyone. I remember Beryl had a carved wooden camphor jewellry box (it stunk like hell), and I had a very colourful silk tie. He was home for the birth of my sister Brenda and the WAAF girls pulled his leg that morning by phoning the house and pretending to be the hospital saying that mum had given birth to twins!

Len always appeared with a bottle of rum.

Now came a period when there was little schooling. The air raids intensified and there were huge and mysterious explosions happening across London. It was suggested that the cause might be gas mains blowing up. We were later to learn that we were now getting the V2 rocket. The rockets gave no sound during their approach, only ahuge exlosion when they hit the ground. They did terrific damage to the properties and were responsibe for a great loss of life.

So, here we were facing aerial torpedoes (in the early part of the war one almost hit Grove Park Station), land mines, bombs, fire bombs, butterfly bombs (these were personnel bombs, small with two wings like fins attached, that floated down and were intended to explode if you picked them up), doodlebugs and V2 rockets. It was time to evacuate again, with only Ron and Dad remaining in London. Ron was evacuated only once during the war. He, like us, was sent with his school (Plassy Road) Just before the start of the war, he was sent to Dymchurch where they all stayed together in one building - possibly it had been a guesthouse. I know he was not there for very long because Dad went down to see him and he was in a deplorable state, so he bought him back. Ron found it very hard to leave his bed and the air raids would have to be very heavy before he got up. Mum and Dad were always shouting at him to get out of bed. Like us, Ron did not have much schooling during this period. Plassy Road School was closed and being used by the Fire Service.

Before I go onto the next Exodus from London, I must meniton that I belive there still must be, close to No 52 Glenbow Road, an unexploded bomb. Ron and I had just come downstairs one night: there was one hell of an air raid going on outside, we heard the whistle of a falling bomb coming very close. Both of us dived behind the settee, putting our hands over our heads. Nothing happened, we waited a little while before getting up, thinking that perhaps it was a delayed action bomb, but still nothing. To this day nothing has happened.

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