大象传媒

I can remember lying on my back in the First Aid Post in Walworth Town Hall, near the Elephant and Castle towards the end of the war, having shrapnel removed from my knee after a bomb exploded close to us. But my earliest memories were when I was two years old, in St Thomas鈥檚 Hospital having caught nearly every childhood decease going. Due to the air raids the children鈥檚 ward was in the large tunnel running under the hospital, and I can remember lying in a cot bed looking up at the roof which had large pipes and cables running the length of the tunnel and listening to the hollow noise. From there I was moved to the quiet of Godalming, Surrey for convalescence.
On returning home to the flats in New Kent Road I joined the routine of being woken every night by air raid sirens. Then having to go down stairs and round the corner about 50 yards to large concrete shelters built down the middle of Pollock Road, where we would stay until the all clear! I can remember that we always had to wait for my mum because she would need to have a wee first, come hell or high water. On some occasions we would be too late to go out and would have to join Mr and Mrs Poet under her large table in their first floor flat. The nightly raids were on the Docks area around Rotherhithe and Bermondsey, the planes would then turn south over New Kent Road and our area would get what was left over. I can remember the road was made up with wooden tar blocks and after some raids the men replacing the blocks throughout the daylight hours. My cousins and friends were evacuated down to Devon, but for some unknown reason I stayed at home with my parents throughout the war.
The bombing became very heavy and all residents in the area were made to go every evening to the deep shelters just south of London Bridge. These were tunnels servicing the Northern Line of the London Underground. They had metal bunk beds where we would stay until morning. Our entrance was via the long flight of stairs in Borough High Street. One morning returning home from the deep shelter we were stopped by police at the County Pub on the corner of Falmouth Road and New Kent Road because part of the tramlines had been blown up on top of our flats and were hanging from the parapet. We spent most of that day in the County Pub, but because of my age I did not benefit much from that experience!
Another time when the planes had stopped coming and doodlebugs or flying bombs or V1 and V2 started to come over, my dad and I were standing at the entrance to our flats waiting for my mum 鈥渨ho was answering a call of nature鈥� when a doodlebug came right over us followed by two RAF planes 鈥淚 was told the RAF would try to tip the wings of the flying bomb to change it鈥檚 direction鈥� we could see the flame from the rear and hear the drone of the engine which then stopped, we didn鈥檛 wait around, we headed straight for the shelter with mum in toe. We heard the thud and later learned that it was a direct hit on a pub in Albany Road killing all the people sheltering in the cellar.
Things eventually quietened down and the bombing stopped. One summers evening I was sitting on the kitchen table whilst my mum was washing me, when there was a large explosion the windows came in, everything went black, the floor gave way and my mum, me and the table slide down into Mrs Poets flat below. The next thing I remember is lying on my back in the First Aid Post in Walworth Town Hall.
This is how I was wounded in the Second World War by an unexploded bomb going off one summers evening in 1944.

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