´óÏó´«Ã½

From Dolly Bushby
________________________________________________

On the Saturday, 9th September, I was on duty at the Advance Telephone Exchange at Eric Street, Bow, E3. I was Supervisor in charge with two other telephonists, we were all in our early twenties. To our horror the air raid warning came through ‘Red’, which we knew from our training meant ‘coming to your area now’ — we had experienced warnings before, but they had never reached the Red Alert stage. We put on our specially converted gas masks, then contacted all the emergency services.

The bombing raid started in earnest, but we knew it was important that we stayed at our switchboards on the top floor. The sound of the bombs exploding was terrifying. We were surrounded by glass windows and could see fires burning everywhere, smoke and fire filled the sky.

We constantly received calls for medical or police help, which we passed on to the respective services. The police station a short distance away was hit and the Bow railway bridge was demolished, as dusk came and turned into night the views of the fires became more terrifyingly and awe inspiring.

Messages were coming in from other exchanges and I heard worrying news about heavy bombing in East Ham, my sister who was just sixteen years old at the time was a trainee sales lady in one of the shops in that area. When the bombing started hitting East Ham the people had naturally gone down to the cellars, which had been prepared as air raid shelters. Many had then been drowned, trapped in these cellars below the shops as the water mains had been hit.

As the raid subsided some of the night staff finally got through to work and so we were relieved of duty for a few hours and able to get some sleep in the shelter at the exchange. The next morning back at the switch-board, on the top floor, it was heart breaking to look out and see groups of bedraggled people, children and pets in tow, clutching the few belongings they had saved from the bombing, if any. All struggling along the streets to the shelters set up by the emergency services, most had lost everything.

I was told to go off duty and as there was no transport had to walk home to Dagenham, via Bow Road, Ilford and Barking. I cannot remember how long it took to walk; the journey was horrendous passing so many bombed places.

When I finally reached home my Mother, Father and sister were all there and thankfully safe.

My Mother told us that earlier she had gone to the shops and the Fried Fish shop man had told her he could not fry his fish as he had no gas or electricity. She had still bought fish from him, saying not to worry she would cook it at home. On arriving home she realised how daft she had been, as she had no cooking facilities either. My Father came to the rescue by building a square block of bricks in the garden with his blow torch in the centre and so we managed to successfully fry the fish — years before it was common place to have a barbecue in your garden! The fish tasted delicious, a moment of normality in our changed world.

I had many more similar experiences during air raids. I was on duty at the Exchange when the first flying bomb V1 came overhead, landing nearby in Grove Road. I remember the weird feeling when one of the shocked engineers came in to tell us that there had been no pilot in the plane. Our first experience of the ‘pilot-less plane’.

Another memory was the strange, jangling sound of the bombs that came over hanging on chains, looking like suspended dustbins; ready to explode wherever they landed. We soon learnt to fear those.

Dolly Bushby

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