大象传媒

Most of my earliest memories are of spending many long nights in a dark dank air raid shelter and the droning noise of aircraft engines. This together with the whistle schrieking of falling bombs followed by the tremendous explosions accompanied by the waving searchlight beams criss crossing the night sky.

My family lived in Dagenham Essex, close to the Ford factory located on the banks of the Thames which was often targeted by the German air force, who also bombed the nearby London docks on route to the city of London itself.
My grandparents from my mothers side of the family lived nearby and often if an air raid started while we were visiting we would be altogether in the garden air raid shelter.
During one air raid my grandfather was watching the spectacle outside the shelter as he often did.I still remember him silhouetted against the bright light flashes from the exploding bombs and the local ack-ack guns.Wearing his steel helmet, Jack Ford, a veteran of the first world war had experienced this act of man made madness many years before.Then my grandmother calling out in a commanding voice "Jack come back in before you catch a packet" There were many nights spent like this one,together with my mother, two brothers and my grandparents.
One evening because of a long air raid we stayed the night .The following morning when returning to our home we had a shock .Our house had been hit during the air raid the previous night.One half of the street had been transformed into a mass of building rubble and broken furniture.
It was a twist of fate,the same air raid that had destroyed our home had at the same time saved our lives by keeping us in a shelter just three miles away.
Born in 1935 and five and a half years of age, this was my world at that time,just like so many others in and around London during 1940-1941.
Then suddenly this way of life was about to change .Together with my older brother Harry we were evacuated.
I remember the large crowded hall in the town of Beccles in Suffolk,all of us children had large labels attched to our coats, and everyone carried a brown boxed gasmask.From here we were taken to the home of our foster parents,which was an old spooky house and quite dark inside,completely different to the house we had just left in Dagenham.
Scared and confused as to what was happening to us,separated from our Mother amongst all these strangers we kept wetting the bed and were moved to another location.
This was a small hamlet near the village of Worlingworth, and it was here that my brother Harry and me were to spend most of the war years.Our new foster parents had two sons older than Harry and myself,they lived in an old country cottage with oil lamps and a large wood burning stove in the kitchen.I have never forgotten the doors in that cottage, they were all made of verticle planks with latch handels.Strange how some details are never forgotten.
At first it was not easy getting on with the foster family, we townies spoke with a different accent and came from a different background.But we all had to get along with each other and make do,as of course we just had to!.
But away from the London Blitz,life in the country was not so bad, meeting the local children and attending the local school.We often all went to school together taking the shortcut, which meant climbing a stile or two then across a meadow to reach the grey stone school building with it,s low walled playground.
I liked the school, and during the lessons there was often news from home brought to us by the local woman evacuee officer, who was also the person supplying us with new clothes when needed, these were donated by my Mother.There was also letters from home with news from Dagenham and of our Father serving with the eighth army in Egypt.
So the school was the place to be at,there we had some contact with home.
Every Sunday with our foster family Harry and me were taken to the local church at nearby Horham. With a packed lunch these church visits would take all day, as all of the children attended various religious classes during the morning and the afternoon. This was the regular Sunday routine , and I still have the books presented to me for good attendance!.

Another clear memory I have of those days is of the kitchen in our foster parents home, there was always a marvellous appetising aroma there. Considering this was wartime and food rationing, our foster father a farm worker, made good use of his hunting skills,often returning home with some wood pigeons or a rabbit. His pet dog had a damaged right ear,the result of a hunting accident. This was quite a comical sight while sitting up alert with just one ear pointing upwards!.
Sometimes we accompanied our foster father on a hunting trip,roaming across fields and into woods searching for something wild for the family table Which was of course an unforgetable experience for children of our age coming from a different background.
So there was often a delicious rabbit pie for dinner or a tasty casserole from the wood pigeons with vegetables,simmering away on the stove in a pot covered and tied off with a cloth, this was always my favourite meal.
Regarding the food during our evacuation we had no complaints!.

One morning while on our way to school we heard a noise which reminded me of the time when we lived in Dagenham.Aeroplane engines,here in Worlingworth, and very loud?. This was scary, then not far away, a huge aircraft rose above a line of tree,s followed by several more.But this time there were not any loud explosions with the engine noise.These aircraft just climbed higher and higher in a wide circle.,
this was exciting and later we learnt that these aircraft were from the American air force who were stationed nearby at Horham.
The local people were all talking about them with remarks like "the yanks are here".
So our daily life routine had changed from the quiet countryside in a village which was now on the outskirts of an operational American wartime airbase!.
Usually during the morning while on our way to school ,these aircraft which were B17 bombers, would take off and pass overhead very low and circle around in a fairly orderly way, climbing higher and higher untill they were out of sight.Then some hours later they would return one or two at a time,often there was one with a smoking engine and a stopped propellor.Once I saw one with a huge gaping hole in it,s wing and another with it,s tail and rudder half shot away.
This activity would take place several times a week and some years later I became very interested about the operations of the American Eighth Airforce in East Anglia.
Harry and me had a favourite playground where a damaged and partly scrapped B17 was parked on the edge of Horham airbase.I can still picture it with it,s huge tail standing high above the hedgerow.The friendly American guards would let us clamber all over it, and we liked playing airman sitting in the cockpit.We spent many a long enjoyable afternoon there.
During one winter with shorter daylight hours the returning B17,s were followed by German fighters and quite an air battle took place as the Americans were circling their home base.That was quite frightening.
So it goes without saying that our evacuation years were not exactly quiet and peaceful,but certainly for children of our age they were exciting times.
Then suddenly Harry was taken seriously ill and needed to go to hospital for an emergency operation.Because of a delay in getting him to hospital, Harry died on route in the ambulance.Later I learnt that the delay was caused by communication and transport problems brought about by the war.
I was too young to understand what had taken place when my foster mother told me that Harry would not be coming home.It just did not make any sense to me and from then on I felt very lonely and unhappy.
Sometime later my Mother arrived to take me back home.
When I returned to Dagenham there were frequent attacks by the VI flying bombs, or the doodlebugs as they were nicknamed.This was a strange aircraft with a weird deep throbbing engine noise and often you could see a flame from it,s rear end.Sometimes while flying overhead the engine would suddenly stop and on a clear day you watch it to see if it would drop and spiral downwards crash and explode or, glide straight and level to explode some miles away.This way you had some controle of events.
But during the night in the air raid shelter or on a cloudy day it was a terrifying situation.
After the VI came the V2,the rocket propelled missile,these weapons arrived without any audible warning at all.Some of these weapons exploded very close to us ,but by good fortune the street where we lived was spared.
Then one day my Mother received a telegram and started dancing around the room saying "your father is coming home".
Later the same week a man in a soldiers uniform arrived with a large kitbag balanced on his shoulder and looking very tanned.It was a wonderful moment after four long years. Alas except for the loss of my brother Harry , we were all together again. D.R.DAVIS.

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