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Reginald Thomas Easton. Resident in London from 1941 to 1945

In February 1941 I returned to my home in West London, having been evacuated with my school to Oxford on 2 September 1939. I was 12 years old.

Travelling back by coach through the suburbs of London, I was amazed to see most shop fronts boarded up, with only a 12 inch window set in the middle.

The ‘Blitz’ was well under way in the early months of 1941, and the routine each evening was to wait for the air-raid warning to sound. We then collected blankets, food, drink and a Davy miners lamp to go into an Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden. The Anderson shelter was made of corrugated steel sections bolted together to form a semi-circle, and covered with earth. The Anderson was named after the then Home Secretary, Sir John Anderson. I should add that sitting in a steel structure set in earth mid-winter was not very pleasant.

We lived hard by Wormwood Scrubs, a large public open space. The ‘Scrubs’ prison was also on the edge of the land. A battery of 3.7 inch anti-aircraft guns was sited on the open space, together with searchlights. The camp was maintained by The Royal Artillery. When enemy aircraft appeared overhead, the gunners opened up, and searchlights lit the sky. The noise was tremendous. After severe raids I often cycled around the roads collecting shrapnel from the ‘Ack-Ack’ guns.

This was the normal existence for Londoners in 1941. The ensuing years of 1942 and 1943 were equally spattered with air raids. This continued until 1944. The Germans had by then perfected their V (Vengeance) weapons, and launched the V1 Flying Bomb soon after D-Day.

On 28 August 1944, we were in ‘the Anderson’, our usual night time abode. It was approximately 2am. A colossal explosion broke the silence. A flying bomb had exploded three gardens away, smack on an Anderson. The family were killed outright. The smoke, dust and after-shock made us momentarily deaf.

In no time at all, emergency services, police, ambulance, first aid, fire and rescue were on the scene. The searchlight beams on Wormwood Scrubs were lowered to illuminate the area. The Salvation Army appeared in a van to dispense hot drinks, sandwiches. Equally, they gave us, the survivors, a cotton bag containing soap, flannel, comb, toothbrush and paste. Very welcome.

Later we were evacuated to a local school, where the classrooms had been converted into bedrooms, complete with bed linen, washing facilities, and, of course, three-tier bunks. A week later we were then in possession of a requisitioned property in Chelsea. Our house was rebuilt some months later, and we reverted to it in 1945.

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