大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Three Counties Action on behalf of Gilbert D. Lock and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

September 3rd 1939
We were a family of our mother and sis children, our elder brother had already let home. We lived in a large flat above a photographers shop on Lavender Hill Battersea, in London.

The owner told us that if war started we could go down into the cellar for safety, in the event of any air raids.

On this day we had a visit from two of our cousins from Colchester, unexpectedly, as one of them had just bought a motorcycle and wanted to give it a good run and also to see us.

We were pleased to see them, but our mother pointed out that we did not have enough bred for sandwiches for all of us now that there were two extra to feed, so two of the boys went out to try to buy some bread, but not many shops were allowed to open on Sundays, but they did manage to get a loaf, however by the time that they got back war had been declared and the air raid siren had been sounded, so we called them down to the cellar, the all clear siren sounded almost instantly as it was a false alarm.

We al returned upstairs to our flat, and after a while somebody asked if they had go any bread, oh yes came a reply, but it had been left down in the cellar, which was also the photographers dark room.

One of the cousins went down to fetch the loaf but as it was dark he could not see, so he came back for a torch, when he went back to the cellar he thought that he had put it on a table, but when he looked the object that he thought was a table, was in fact an acid tank, which the photographer used for his work.

Next day we had to tell the owner what had happened in case it affected his work but he just laughed and said well its gone now.

Of course I had many more experiences, but I thought that a humorous story would be a good way of introducing you to the perils of war.

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