大象传媒

It was June 1944. We had come through the blitz unscathed. I was upstairs and heard my mother in the garden talking to two neighbours. Their voices carried clearly and I heard one saying 鈥渢hey are planes without men in them鈥�. So opened for us one of Hitler鈥檚 dying flings, the launching of his V1 (Vengeance Weapon) flying bombs, buzz bombs or doodlebugs as we called them.

We soon learnt to recognise their curious hollow popping sound which still makes my flesh tingle if I hear it on a film. While the engine was running there was no immediate danger but if it cut out one had to take cover quickly. We had given up using our old Anderson shelter in the garden, after so many years of raids we felt bombproof. Daft maybe, but there it was.

With two school chums, Roy and Ken, I had been cycling all over Southeast England and we saw no reason to give up. The doodlebugs simply added a measure of interest to our trips. We would watch them pop, pop, popping across the sky with a jet of flame coming from their back end. Indeed, there was a current joke about an RAF fighter struggling to catch up a doodlebug and asking the thing why it was going so fast. 鈥淵ou鈥檇 go fast too鈥� the doodlebug answered 鈥渋f your arse was on fire鈥�.

One odd thing was that I never told my parents where I was going. It was not a matter of secrecy but merely that we didn鈥檛 plan in advance. We would meet up and decide then and there where to go. We did enjoy ourselves and thought little or nothing of the danger. There was beauty in the countryside. One memory is of the view from the top of Leith Hill, the highest point in the south of England at 1000鈥�, near the home of Ralph Vaughan Williams, the English composer whose position after a further sixty odd years seems more secure than ever. The balloon barrage had been reinforced as a further guard against the doodlebugs and as we gaved our we saw their silver shapes dotted all over the scene before us. It was so lovely.

One day we were later than usual so we decided to go only to Shirley, on the eastern outskirts of Croydon. We found an open space, quite high up and with good views. There was a great deal of doodlebug activity - it was not surprising that Croydon was to become the most doodlebugged place in the country. It seems incredible now, how we passed our time that day, guzzling Tizer and casually watching those deadly devices coming across.

It was almost idyllic. Then suddenly we all said, pretty well in unison, 鈥淲hat happened to that one we lost sight of?鈥� We froze, looked down rather than up and saw the thing, black and sinister, coming in very low across the nearby treetops and heading straight for us. It made a gentle swishing sound - its engine had cut out but it had not nosedived in the usual way. We swung round and ran hard as if our lives depended on it. Wait a minute, our lives did depend on it.

We passed an anti-glider ditch. 鈥淪hall we jump in?鈥� I screamed. 鈥淣o time, keep going鈥� Ken shouted back. Somehow we sensed the precise moment that we had to flop down and this we did, keeping our chests clear of the ground in the practised way in order to minimise blast injury. The thing went off and we scrambled to our feet and went to look at it. It had penetrated into the soil only a foot or so and the ground had split open around the point of entry. It looked rather like a dangerous beast that had died.

Before the sudden emergency we had been alone but now soldiers and other men appeared from nowhere. The blast had set the dry grass on fire and we all set to with branches to put out the flames. My trousers were burnt but we persevered and were able to prevent the fire from spreading. Soon the whole area was back to normal, accepting that word in the sense of waiting for the next doodlebug to come over.

We cycled home. My father asked where I had got to that day. 鈥淥h, over the other side of Croydon鈥� I replied.

D-day had taken place and eventually the Allied forces made their through the terrible bocage country of Normandy and to the Pas de Calais where the V1 launching sites were located and that horror was over.

Then came the V2s, the rockets which came down without warning, except maybe a flash of light but there was no evading them or taking cover, travelling at around 3600 miles/hr as they did. Our first experience was when we were sitting in our lounge (or dining room as we then called it) one warm Sunday morning. There was a loud bang and the French windows blew open. It was a V2 but I don't recall where it landed. It's worth mentioning that we called them "flying gas mains". This was because the official line when they started was that they were gas main explosions. That was the popular response. Perhaps it's worth metnioning in parenthesis how important the 大象传媒's Tommy Handley programme ITMA was, on the radio. The catch phrase "Can I do you now, sir?" was on people's lips frequently and victims who had been dug out of bombed buildings would call it out and laugh. That was very much how we responded to all the air raids. I never witnessed or hear of terror.

Right, the next V2. I cycled down the road and met a couple of local chums and then we met a man with whom we were friendly. He had a way with young peo-le and we set great store by him. Johnson was his name and, for some reason, we called him "Poppa" Johnson. He was in the civil defence in some capacity on a part-time basis. We had no sooner greeted each other when there was a loud bang. "That's a V2" we said in unison and we could tell in which direction it had landed. We also thought we could tell how far away it was and we guessed the top end of Streatham Common, about a mile or so distant. We were right about the direction but way out regarding distance. "Let's go and find out" we said again in unison and off we all pedalled. We went to the Common and up the hill beside it. No sign of anything. On to Crown Point - still nothing. Down the hill into Norwood. "Ask this bloke" we said to Poppa. (I can picture his appearance now). Poppa asked this man who responded with a kind of "Who the hell are you?" Poppa explained but he was not at all mollified. It was the spying scare I mentioned earlier. "You might be German spies" he bleated. Did a man with two boys look like spies? I think he was just being bloody-minded (a phrase unknown to use then). Then he relented and told us that it was the (I think) West Norwood Odeon (the cinema chain that was everywhere). We didn't want to go that far farther on. I hadn't told my parents where I was and Poppa hadn't told his wife or my chums told their people. It occurred to us that we ought to hightail (again not a word we used then) it home. Back we went.

I don't think the V2s went on for more than a few months. They were less scary than the V1s. One just carried on what one was doing - what else could we do. One could do nothing butaccept fate.

I have no particular memories until the war began to draw to a close. One of our neighbours, a very attractive woman named Maisie, had a POW husband and RAF Lancsters were coming back with repatriated POWs on board. Every so often one would thunder overhead quite low and someone would call out "Won't be long now, Maisie". I can picture this lady clearly as I can most of my other recollections. She was tall and a relaxed kind of person. One day she took off her blouse and sunbathed. I was thrilled and endeavoured to conceal the fact that I was looking (staring!) at her. Then another neighbour called out to her to "cover up" but she protested that she needed the sun to get to her body. (Wow!)

There was a tragedy when a Lancaster loaded with ex-POWs burst a tyre on taking off, skidded and crashe and burst into flames. We were devastated and it cast a pall across this exciting time.

Eventatually we came towards what we were told to call VE-Day. There was none of the suddenness as there was (we read) about the end of the 1WW. There was a kind of anti-climax when we were told it would be on 9 May (1945 of course).

We had one of many street parties outside our house.

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