大象传媒

It was a Sunday Lunchtime in the Summer of 1944. I know it was then because the " Doodlebugs" started arriving over London in the middle og June that year.

I know it as a Sunday because on that day of the week we had a set routine that went into action whenever the the airraid warning syren went off during lunchtime. My father had decreed that nothing should disturb our weekly family meal unless danger was imminent.

We had moved from Streatham [ London SW2] to Bromley in Kent in 1938. We were now on the edge on the Greenbelt, and lived in Broadoaks Way, a leafy new development on the outskirts of in this suburbain town.

I was twelve years old and it was here in the garden that looked south over farmland that I was stationed on Sunday lunchtimes during and airraid alert.
My postion was between the chicken run and the compost heap. There were no fairies at the bottom of our garden, only vegetables and poultry to help the war effort.

My father had carefully studied the flight paths of the incoming V1 bombs and concluded that thet there three routes by which they approached London. One route passed to the East of us and one the the est, but central path passed right over our house. The RAF of course did a fine jod in shooting the bombs down over the Countryside south of us . Then there was a protective ring of Barrage Balloons whosecables might hopefully destroy othes. However, as we all know, many got through and their distructive work was all too painfully obvious.

My father , who war job was the head of a London munitions factory, and being had rigged up a cable connected to a loud electric bell in the dining room. At my end in the garden was a push button to summon help when danger of an imminent attack.

So there I would stand, binoculars in hand , scanning the horizon for any hostile looking flying objects coming our way.. And this was at the tender age of twelve. I felt like one of Nelson's midshipmen on duty in Victory's Crow's nest !!

On this particular Sunday there was quite a lot of activity. I spotted intruders on the Eastern and Western flanks advancing . It let them go by with out sounding the alert. Then my binoculars detected onr the was heading straight for Numbe 37 Broadoaks Way! I pushed the bell button vigourously several times. Then dropped the cable and headed for the undergraound airraid shelter the family had helped construct under the cabbage patch.

The distinctive sound of the Doodlebug wa getting louder and louder. By now my father, mother, brother and sister were half way down the garden path. I stood at the doorway as they piled in one by one. T he dronning noise of the V1's engines reached a deafening crescendo. Ther ir was several hundred feet above us. It was a terrifying moment and my heart stopped. At that moment it's engines stopped and there was a sudden chillilling silence. Then from my seat by the shelter's door I saw the bomb's nose turned sharply and began to fall just over us. We all started counting "one, two three -- ---- CRASH !!! the exposion was deafening. It was the closest we had been to a direct hit. Later we learned that it had landed a couple of roads away demolishing a house killing all those inside!!

The "All Clear " siren sounded sonn afterwards and we were ablr to return to the remains of Sunday Lunch. I'll never forget those dangerous days and it's effect on all of us even those of us who were watching from the "Home Front "

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