大象传媒

In 1938 When Britain was on the brink of war with Germany, my mother decided to take us, i.e.: my sister and I evacuating, we were put in a car late at night and taken to some remote part of England. Bearing in mind that was the second time in my life that I had been in a car it was quite an experience. We arrived at this place that seemed like the middle of the night for me, as I was only eight years of age. We were ushered in and put to bed. When I woke up the next morning, what a shock I got. The toilet was at the bottom of the garden and the sink consisted of one large shallow sink with a cold tap. I must say that the house I came from was new and we had hot and cold running water, which was quite a contrast.

My mother approached the lady whose house we were staying at and asked her where we were, her reply according to my mother was 鈥測our in England my dear鈥� to which my mother replied 鈥淚 know that but ,where a bouts鈥� the lady replied that we were in Ogborn St. George in Wiltshire.

Needless to say we went back to London the following week when we knew that there was going to be peace in our time. We never ever did leave London again and my mother chose to stick it out, live or die together she said.

As most of the schools in London were closed during the early days of the war, owing to lack of teachers, they had all gone with the evacuees. We never went to school for about eighteen months.

My sister who was twelve did her best to teach us younger ones down. The Anderson shelter

In the early days it was quite exciting watching the dogfights, between the Spitfires and Messersmitts

We used to spend our days going round picking up shrapnel, aircraft recognition etc.

I joined the 40th Woolwich Air Scouts where we did air spotting, paper collecting, metal collecting, anything to help the war effort

When the Schools eventually opened I went to a school in the next road in early 1941
My friend and I heard this plane come over, and then the siren blew, this was usual.
The next minute a couple of bombs burst in our street, which we could see from the window. From where we watched it looked as though both our houses had been hit, we tore out the classroom with the teacher screaming at us to go to the shelter.
We rushed home which took us about five minutes, to find that my friends house and the house next door were blown up. As the Germans only used small bombs about 25lbs in their fighter-bombers, they didn鈥檛 do that much damage at that time.
My friend鈥檚 mother had gone to the top of the road to buy a loaf of bread only to find that her house had been blown up while she was gone. So she had a lucky escape.
My mother was at home but she was unhurt, thank God.

We lived one mile from Woolwich Arsenal the armourments factory so it was quite hectic most of the time.
One particular day, my father and I were digging out the Shelter to make it deeper, it was a beautiful summers day in September 1941. He said to me鈥� look at that big black cloud coming over鈥�, as the black cloud got nearer it started droning. We realised it was aircraft, I believe there were about 400 hundred bombers over London that day.
The docks were alight, Woolwich Arsenal was also alight. The heat from the Arsenal was so hot that the people who lived near by were forced to move out; they came up our road in hundreds. We took them in and gave them a bed for the night.

We spent many a long night in the Anderson Shelter, and then. went to school next day. Needless to say, none of us got very high marks in our Scholarship exam, now called the 11 plus

I had a great big map of the Desert and I used to map out the 8th Army. One funny thing I remembered, every time, the Germans retreated we called it a retreat, but when the Allies retreated, we called it a strategic withdrawal. Somebody near where we lived had their house blown down by a land mine. So he pinned on his front door that he had made a strategic withdrawal to somewhere else. What a spirit us Brits had don鈥檛 you think?.

We had round the area what were called A.W S.tanks in other words( emergency water supply), in the case of the water mains getting bombed the fire service could use these to put out fires. When we were kids we used to climb in these tanks and have a swim.

My father who was Mate of a tug on the river Thames was moored outside Tilbury Dock. He was waiting to dock with barges into the dock, when up came a Naval officer, a three ringer to be exact. He told my father that the Navy had commandeered the tug and that he had to go ashore and get vitals and make their way to Chatham where they would receive further orders. They proceeded to Chatham were they spent the next 18 months ferrying supplies out to the airmen who were on barges out in the Thames estuary with a balloon barrage attached.
We never knew for three days that he had gone. Bearing in mind we never had any telephones in those days.

As the war progressed we became more optimistic that we were winning, then came the Doodlebugs, in the main we didn鈥檛 worry too much about them as you could see them coming, they were quite exciting really. Then came the mark 2 the rockets we hated them because you didn鈥檛 know any thing about them until they struck, they were quite scary.

Then came V.E. day that was the greatest day of my life we had tables out all the way up the street, there was singing and dancing everywhere it was fantastic, but the down side was that I was a boy soprano at school, and that was it, my voice broke in one night.

That鈥檚 the extent of my experiences.

Dave White 19/6/1930

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