大象传媒

The first day of the Second World War was bright and sunny with barrage baloons in the sky. At eleven am that day I was sitting on my mother`s knee at our home in Ealing West London to hear Mr Neville Chamberlain announce that we were at war with Germany. I was four and a half years old.

My father immediately contacted his sister(my Aunt Mona who was then living at Parkstone Dorset) so I went the next day with my mother to stay with my Aunt who I later realised lived nearer the enemy! My Aunt and my uncle Teddy had a pretty bungalow in Fernside Road with a stream running through the front garden and an orchard at the back.

After about a month of the `so called` Phoney War we returned to Ealing to await the blitz.

Fortunately there was time for my father to sink the Anderson shelter beneath the fruit trees in the back garden; the shelter was made of hoops of corrugated iron which my father covered with a layer of earth. He then placed an old water tank by the entrance to the shelter which he then filled with earth as an anti-blast measure.

When we were ready to use the new shelter a neighbour, Mrs Parbury gave me a siren suit like Mr. Churchill`s .

I remember going down to the shelter through an often snowy backgarden sitting at first on deckchairs but later sleeping on bunks. I remember the smell of the paraffin heater mixed with the smell of the creosoted wooden floor.

One day I was playing with a friend by putting a board across the bunks when unfortunately the board fell taking me with it; in falling I struck the sharp edge of a bunk and gauged the bridge of my nose; pouring blood I was patched up temporarily by my mother and taken to Hamble Cottage Hospital for the full repair. I carry the scar to this day which is often mostly concealed by the bridge of the spectacles that I have to wear for long distance work and play. I call the scar the result of my `war wound`.

I remember accompanying my father to Osterley House where his employers, Glymills Bank were evacuated. He used to Fire Watch on the roof and I went up there with him. This was in the daytime but a bomb did fall one night on the Orangery on a separate site. Fortunately, the main house escaped any direct hits.

At other times when my father came home I remember him banging on the door of the air raid shelter to let him in quickly to avoid falling shrapnel. He was dressed in his business suit and a tin hat like that worn by British Troops.

I did not start school (Lammas Primary School) until I was six and I remember sitting in a brick built shelter listening to the teacher, Miss Aston reading to us the life of Schubert. One passage I particularly recall that when the composer ran out of paper He wrote on the table-cloth, such was his inspiration.

In 1940 we were visiting my maternal grandparents, also at Ealing, when there was an air raid and we saw a fire bomb fall past the scullery roof on to a neighbouring property.

When my grandmother died in that year my grandfather came to live with us and because he had angina we were able to get a Morrison Table Shelter installed inside the house.

One day my grandfather who was in Ealing Broadway hurried for his bus home but missed it . He learnt later that it was passing Abernethy`s outfitting shop when the shop received a direct hit.

On another occasion my father had to go to Portsmouth to identify his brother, Claude who had been killed whilst walking past a pub that received a direct hit. I remember that my father brought back Claude`s crumpled cigarette case. Claude`s widow was left with seven children, four of whom are still alive.

I have three memories of the V 1s or Flying bombs or Doodlebugs;

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.