大象传媒

This story was submitted to the WW2 People's War Website by the London Borough of Harrow Housebound Library Service on behalf of Mrs Lilian Walker, and has been added with her permission.

Coming out of an office on Millbank, London, Susie Parrott said to me 鈥淲hat are you doing tonight?鈥� I lived in Ruislip at the time and she in a bedsit on the Bayswater Road. 鈥淚鈥檓 just going home鈥� I replied. 鈥淲hat about having something to eat first鈥� she asked, and I agreed, as to eat out meant that you saved your rations at home. We went to a Lyons Corner House and were extremely surprised to find only a couple of people in the restaurant. There were four waitresses standing close together and looking a bit agitated. When we had looked at the menu a waitress ran to take our order, which I think was cheese on toast. She ran back with it and we ate our meal, and then went our separate ways. I caught a train, which was packed. We were all squashed up and felt that no-one else could get in at the next station, but people pushed in, and we felt exhausted. When we reached Hammersmith we were told to get out and stand on the platform. One man lit a cigarette and people, mostly men, shouted at him to put it out. We could see an air raid was taking place in the distance and the area looked ablaze with fire. After some time we were allowed to continue our journey, but I could not understand why we hadn鈥檛 heard a warning siren, or been told an air raid was looming.

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