大象传媒

Walking to school one morning with some friends we saw an aeroplane in the distance coming ove rthe roof tops. As it got nearer someone said "Its a German plane". I said "Gerry, you mean" which to me, sounded more insulting. The plane was very low and we could see it very clearly as it went over our heads. The we saw four bombs fall out of the plane, and heard the bangs. We all started to run home but an ARP warden stopped us and sent us back to school to get into the air raid shelter. The bombs fell on the Grosvenor Hotel and round about that area.

Playing in the playground of Silver Jubilee, Acacia Road, one day a lot of planes flew over. I saw two of them collide and start to come crashing down. We were all so scared we ran into the air raid shelter. One of them landed on a bungalow about half a mile away, killing the pilot and two people. I don't know where the other plane landed.

Two or three of us boys would cycle to Clapham to watch airplanes come back from bombing raids. Some of the planes were badly shot up, some with only one engine working. They would fire different coloured very lights to signal from air to ground or ground to air as they came in to land.

Cardington camp was a training centre for barrage balloon crews. There were always lots of balloons up in the air. During thunder storms, with a great lot of pleasure I would sit at home and watch these balloons being struck by lightening. They would burst into flames and come crashing down.

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