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Blitz Kids — Mitcham

Whenever I talk about the war I can see people don’t really believe me. According to popular belief all the children in Greater London were evacuated. Well, that is not really true. I was in Mitcham throughout the war. After Sherwood Park School was bombed, I had to go to Pollards Hill School. I was six and a half years old by then. Sometimes the school was closed. I cannot remember how long for. Three of us children went to school at the beginning of a new term. We were told to go home and tell our mothers the school would contact them when it opened again.

Events changed often. My friends were away a lot of the time but there were still quite a few of us going down the school shelter chanting times tables and singing. We were sent to Miss Rogers (The Headmistress) if we did not know our tables or had trouble with our reading.

Miss Willis was another teacher brought out of retirement as the young teachers were called up to go into the services. She wore wellington boots and always chose a boy to pull them off. She had a cupboard full of toilet rolls, the shiny sort that were always falling out much to our amusement. She would hand out a few sheets at a time to those who were sniffing. (Her pet aversion).

We watched the Battle of Britain when they were fighting high in the sky with the long vapour trails chasing each other. Sometimes a Spitfire would drop low just over the rooftops and we would crouch down expecting the worst.

We were always listening for enemy aircraft trying to make their way into the city on a bombing raid. If the shelter was flooded we would have to go under the stairs. In April 1941 my mother gave birth to my sister downstairs in the front room. My mother was very brave as my father had to go and find the midwife and leave her alone with my brother and me asleep in the dining room. The midwife was busy delivering another baby half a mile away. She raced over on her bicycle in the blackout in time to deliver my sister. There were bad Air Raids all night. That nurse deserved a medal. So did our mother. As long as we were with her during the war we could face anything. I felt sorry for the children who were evacuated without their mothers. My mother had been evacuated in the first world war and decided that she would rather stay at home. We could all die together if it came to it.

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