大象传媒

When war broke out on September 3rd 1939, I left school because I didn鈥檛 want to be evacuated to Weston-super-Mare with the rest of my class. Shortly after Mr. Chamberlain鈥檚 announcement over the radio that we were at war with Germany, there was an air raid warning. My mother grabbed the gas masks and ran to one shelter, and my father grabbed me and ran to another. When the All Clear sounded and we were reunited, my mother said she was convinced that my father and I would be
gassed because she had all the gas masks.

The Blitz started in 1940. At that time, nobody really seemed to know what they were doing. When the air raid siren sounded, we went to a place in Commercial Road, towards Aldgate. This was a large building, with cobblestones on the floor. It was owned by one of the breweries, I think, so the people were on one side and the huge horses were on the other. As an Air Raid Shelter, it was probably completely useless.

Our next shelter was in Mrs. Pizer鈥檚 cellar. She lived across the road from us and about twenty of the neighbours used her cellar. We all slept on duckboards and it was all right until I was woken up one night by rats leaping across my face.

One day, after a raid, I was out walking with my friend Lenny. I suppose we were about fourteen at the time. We saw a group of women who were shouting and gesticulating. We went up to them and Lenny tapped one of them on the shoulder and said 鈥淲hat鈥檚 up, Missus?鈥� 鈥淚鈥檝e got a bomb on my kitchen floor鈥�, she said. 鈥淚 live on the top floor and it came through the roof and it鈥檚 just lying there.鈥� Lenny and I looked at each other, then we just walked into the house and up the stairs. There it was, on the kitchen floor. It was a small incendiary bomb. Lenny knew what to do. 鈥淲e get a pail鈥�, he said 鈥渁nd we fill it with water.鈥� So we found a pail, filled it with water, and carefully lifted the bomb and put it in. Then between us, we gingerly carried it down the three flights of stairs. The women were still there; still shouting and gesticulating. We went up to them and said 鈥淚s this it?鈥� They screamed and ran off in all directions. An Air Raid Warden across the street saw us and came running over. He was red in the face and was yelling 鈥淕et away from there. Leave it alone.鈥� So we left him to it. Whenever I see Bill Pertwee as the Warden in 鈥淒ad鈥檚 Army鈥�, I think of him. It wasn鈥檛 until I was much older that I realised what a stupid and dangerous thing we had done.

Another shelter I remember was the basement of a factory building. This was an official shelter and was meant for 120 people. One night there were 400 people packed into it. I remember standing there with my parents one minute and the next minute I was lying on the pavement on my back. It seems I鈥檇 passed out and since there was no room for anyone to lie down, a couple of men had carried me out to the street. Of course, when I awoke it was to the sound of falling bombs and anti-aircraft fire My parents were still inside the shelter - they couldn鈥榯 get out - and I went back and banged on the door until they reluctantly opened it and let me in again. Once a raid was on, it was dangerous to
open the door of a shelter..

One day during a mid-morning raid, we were running towards a shelter when a German fighter plane came low, and started machine-gunning and people on the other side of the street were falling. Some had been hit. Nobody dared stop to see. After the raid we picked up bits of shrapnel and spent
bullets. This was another of my near-death experiences.

After many sleepless nights, my father decided that we had to have one night鈥檚 rest. So he booked us into the Regent Palace Hotel for the night. It was, and still is, at Piccadilly Circus and so it was easy for us to get back to the East End to open the factory the next day. The night he chose was the worst night of the Blitz. It was the night when nearly all of London鈥檚 East End burned and St. Paul鈥檚 Cathedral famously survived. In the hotel, we were not able to go up to the third floor where our rooms were because the West End was being bombed as well.. All the hotel guests spent the night on the floor of the Ballroom At about 2 a.m. people started to pour into the hotel There had been a direct hit on the Cafe Royal just round the corner in Piccadilly and all the people who had escaped that came into the Regent Palace. In the morning there was complete chaos. All the roads to the east were impassable and when we tried to get back to the East End, we found we couldn鈥檛. We didn鈥檛 even know if our house was still standing. None of our relatives was able to take us in and finally we were sent off to High Wycombe in a coach, along with others who were in a similar situation.

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