大象传媒

THE YEAR 1939, I was 9 years old when I came into Paddington Station,the Newspaper vendors were shouting out Star,News,Standard, WAR DECLARED read all about it, well I was coming to London to live my parents had just taken a house for us to live in.

My Father was an AIR RAID WARDEN (ARP) and during the blitz he was in a Concrete Re-inforced shelter along the road at night whilst we slept in the Anderson Shelter, high explosive bombs dropped around us, we were also not to far from Hornchurch Aerodrome which was a fighter station, where Hurricanes and Spitfires went up to intercept the German Bombers on there way up north.

Of course as bombers were intercepted they dropped their loads so that they could get up higher and try to return to base,

We had later on in a park just near us, 160 Electric Rocket Launchers, these could be fired in all directions either in a square or a cross section or in lines on the grid, in this way aircraft would be caught in the explosive sections. Cordite fell all over the park out of these rockets as they were fired. There were also mobile searchlights in the area.

We experienced Dog fights in the skys with Messerschmidts and Stuka Dive bombers. We had incenderies, oil bombs etc all around us.

There were also phosphoruus bombs, I remember one night my Father enlisting my help to keep a bomb watered with a stirrup pump and a bucket of water to stop it catching fire until the bomb disposal squad chaps arrived at the house.

As the War proceeded we had many Doodle Bugs flying over Barrage Balloons were errected along the coast but the Germans then put cutter blades on the wings so that the Doodle Bugs could cut through the cables of the Baloons.

Next came V2's and a few of these dropped around us and destroyed some houses.

We celebrated the end of the War with a Street party, and VJ Day also with a party.

My schooling was broken up and classes irregular due to Air Raids, However when I was thirten and a half my Headmaster asked my what I would like to do when I left School,as I was interested in the tool workshop at school and sharpened all the tools on a Friday ready for Monday he thought I should be an instrument and tool maker.

You can read more about my leaving school in WW2 early work days fire watching in London, on my Website:- ^{About links}

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