大象传媒

The scene is Chelsea, near to Lots Road Power station, round about 1941/2 (I was born in 1935). The Germans were targeting the power station but never managed to hit it, as far as I know.

The night skies over this part of Chelsea were always resonating with the sound of German bombers attacking London and the searchlights frantically sought to capture them in their beam and we could see, equally frantically, the bombers trying to evade the searchlight beams. When a German bomber was trapped in the beam then the ack-ack(anti-aircraft) guns would open up and try to shoot them down.

I remember seeing a bomber hit on one occasion and a parachute opening up as one of the crew escaped from the burning aircraft -what happened to the other crew members I don't know. My father, who was a policeman in "B" division and armed with a .45 revolver said that the German crew member had to escorted away from angry Londoners when he eventually landed. Apparently when he stepped out of his parachute it was pounced upon by the citizens because parachute silk was much in demand for use in making clothes and underwear, it also saved having to use clothing coupons.

The bombers were also attacked by british fighter planes and these were much more effective in shooting down these bombers than was the ack-ack fire. During the raids, my mother,my sister and me would sleep in the sandbagged entrance hall of the block of council flats in Hortensia Road where we lived and I would often sneak outside to collect shrapnel which I could hear falling all around me - some of it was still warm when I picked it up so I must consider myself very lucky to have survived these expeditions but in those days nothing seemed to matter or frighten us.

My mother gave me a good telling off when she found out that I'd been doing this. She must have been worried sick.

My school St Mark's C of E Primary was quite near to Stamford Bridge football ground and I remember that one sight , still attempting to hit the power station, the bombs fell on a block of Guinness Trust flats and demolished it, with many dead and injured.

The next morning, at school, we were told that we could not use the playground except to go to the outside toilets on the side of the playground. This whetted our apetites and so after a short time there was steady of requests to go to the toilet. We had to follow the roped-off pathway to the toilets and when we looked at the rest of the playground there were dozens of white sheets covering something and we were told that these were the bodies of people and children (2 of whom went to my school) killed in the previous night's raid.

It really brought home, for the first time really, that the war could reach out and touch even us at the tender ages of 5,6 or 7.

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