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"My father who had been working in the City for many years — the City of London — and he worked at that time in Winchester House, near Liverpool Street Station. He must have been in his early 60s, and he used to fire-watch two nights a week in the City of London, and then the rest of the time in the village — Norwood Green — where we lived, he used to fire watch, take his turn watching there. But he was in London when the great fire in London, absolutely, the sky was red you could see it for miles outside London, he fire watched there. Fortunately, he wasn’t wounded, but there were lots of other men that age group who’d fought in the First World War, that were doing that, and I had to admire them. About that time in 1944, my sister who was in the Land Army had an accident which resulted in a tumour in the spine, and she went into St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington and had this removed. She was convalescing and they decided to bring her home nearer to the village of Norwood Green, and she went into a hospital, that was an EMS, an emergency hospital, attached to the well, asylum really, at Hanwell. Sadly, these buzz bombs, doodlebug things started to come over, and one came over on this particular Saturday afternoon, and they couldn’t shoot it down. It dropped in the grounds of this hospital, subsequently most of the people who were on the veranda, which was all glass, it was an old building, were very badly wounded. My sister, she had quite a lot facial wounds, and they transferred her to Harefield Hospital, and she died the following November of her injuries. So, it was quite an eventful year, that year, for us as a family."

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