大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Eileen Bostle of the Community Service Volunteers on behalf of Roy Still and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

We lived in Streatham in South-West London. From the garden during the Blitz we could see the glow from the fires in the City and Docks about five miles away. Stray bombs from the raids on these areas sometimes fell on Streatham.
My father, James Albert "Ben" Still, was a docker in the London Docks, and on certain nights he had to do fire watch duty. On one particular night, in a lull between raids, his companion went down to make two mugs of tea. While he was doing so another raid started. My father summoned him back to the roof by pulling a rope which was suspended down the stair well with tin cans on the end. As he pulled on the rope, the wharf next to my father's had a direct hit, the blast blowing my father down the stairs. Picking himself up, he saw his companion coming up the stairs with the mugs of tea. "Quiet tonight, Ben, isn't it?" he said to my father.
It must be explained that my father's companion was stone deaf, and my father was blind in his left eye and partially-sighted in his right due to mustard gas in the First World War. Both of them somehow survived the Second World War!

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