大象传媒

When I was about 5 or 6 in Millwall in Isle of Dogs in the East End of London, we were bombed out in the first part of the war. During the air raids then, we would go to a company called Le Bar Tube, over the road where they made steel pipes. We'd go into their air raid shelter - there'd be quite a lot of familes there, maybe 15 or 20, it was a big underground thing. There were beds on the floor, matresses and so on. We'd stay in there during the riads - when the all-clear came on we'd go home. One day when we went out - a bomb had hit the end house on the terrace, and blown all our roofs and windows off, there was a fire in the end houses, but all the rest were uninhabitable, no roofs or windows or joists. All our furniture was ruined, we didn't have anything left really just a few clothes - my Mun and Dad went in to get what they could find. Then we went to live in another house - which the council had found us - it was near, still in Millwall.

I was evacuated about 1941. I was sent to Swindon - to Wroughton, to my Aunts. I was put onto a train, I don't know which station, I had my gas masks and a label on me. I remember feeling sad, and scared. I knew I had an Aunt - but I'd never met her. I was about 7 at the time. I stayed with my aunt for about 18 months, with my aunt and all my cousins. They lived in a farm house with an outside toilet and stone floors, it was a thatched house. And all the children slept in the same bedroom. There were about 5 or 6 of us. I missed my Dad and Mum, but my Aunt Thirza was very kind to me. Her husband was away in the airforce. It was a set of cottages around a farm-yard, and it was quite close to the downs. I'd not been to the countryside before; we used to throw a big bed of corrugated iron into the nettles then jump in, so you wouldn't see us from the path. Also if we had a ha-ppeny we used to cut a little hole in the turf, put the coin in it and then put the grass back, then we used to put sticks over it so we knew where it was - but sometimes we'd go back to it days later and we couldn't find it! We also used to play a game where we threw a tin, the person who was "it" had to run after the tin, adn as they were running we would hide. They had to come and find us, and we would race them back to the tin. if we got there first we would throw the tin again and ti all started again. If they reached the tin first and banged it three times on the floor it was the turn of the person they'd caught to be "it".

There was a barn, with three cow sheads. I hadn't see farm animals before - I'd seen rabbits, because we'd had rabbits at home, but I'd never seen a cow, pigs or horses before - I thought they were lovely. Excepet the cows - I was frightened of the cows.

I don't specifically remember coming home - I remember BEING home, I was very pleased to see my Mum and Dad.

Later in the war I remember standing in the garden with my father listening to noise of the V1 or the V2s flying bombs, listening to the engine noise. And my father would say "When the engine noise cuts out, we have to get in the shelter quicklybecasue the flying bomb will descend and stop flying". Then we'd get in and cover our ears up - and wait for the bang. Sometimes it was close and sometimes it was further away.

Sometmes when it was close my Dad would go and try and help people, and rescue others -he was an ARP Warden, so he used to help get people out of houses - and help clear roads.

Now I've got a book about the war with a famous photograph in it. The photograph shows a German bombing raid over the East End, it shows a Heinkel bomber, dropping bombs. It taken from above the plane and you can see London and Isle of Dogs laid out underneath in the photograph, almost like a map. You can see my road, Hesperus Crescent in the photo and my even house! And I know I was there that day - because I wasn't anywhere else, and I must have been in the shelter - because when the raids were on I was always in the shelter. Its a strange feeling now - because when the bombs were going off, I was there in the shelter with my Mum, she was singing to me and comforting me, like my son now does to his children, its so strange to see the photo now.

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