大象传媒

I am 71 years old and the war and the following evacuation had a traumatic effect on my life and the memories have remained with me as I am sure they have with many others. As the world now is such a totally different place, unrecognizble to those people who died, I find myself looking back to my childhood days and although my evacuation was a very bad affair, the way of life then was less frantic, everybody cared about each other, there was no trying to be better or richer, we were all in the same boat and money and prosperity didn't amount to much when people were being killed every day. It was watching the first episode of Dunkirk that I was persuaded to log on to the ww2 website and I haven't stopped reading it yet.

After the Dunkirk episode, I just remember the blitz, daylight bombing raids then for some reason they switched to night raids, regular tea=time slot, around about 6.0'clock just as mum was getting tea ready, down we would trundle to the anderson shelter and lay there terrified, "is it alright ,mum" was our usual question and we would look at her face, she never ever showed us fear, yes, we're alright, its not here, were her usual words, I don't know she coped alone with three children, she must have been just as frightened as us but she never showed it. One of our neighbours who lived two doors away in Crutchley Road,Catford, had decided that she had had enough and was going to the country but my mum would'nt leave London as my dad was then in bomb disposal and could get home on occasions. One night was exceptionally bad, the usual 6.0'clock raid took us to the shelter as usual but it wasn't a short night, that night we stayed in the shelter for 14 hours. The "all-clear" went eventually and we crawled out to find everything around us was alight. Opposite to where we lived was a builders yard or something of that sort, there was piles and piles of wood and brown coloured stone sewer pipes, perhaps council owned, I dont know, we called it the stocks. This particular day everything was alight,houses all around us were bomb damaged, windows smashed, tiles off roofs. The amazing thing was we never lost a slate or a smashed window. I know Someone was looking after us. When we decided to go and see the damage round the streets, there were baths, sinks, beds, everything you could imagine lying in the street. The firemen were everywhere trying to put out the fires,the only thing left standing in many of the houses were the stairs. It was well known that to stay under the stairs was one of the safest places.This was confirmed by a story of a neighbour and her husband who went under the stairs during a raid. When there
was a lull in the bombing the husband decided to go to the kitchen and make a cup of tea, there was a direct hit on the house, he was killed and the wife survived.
After this terrible night, the neighbour came in to see if we were alright and gave mum an address in Northamptonshire to go to if she wanted. She decided there and then and we left to go to Welton, nr.Daventry, that again is another story.

We did come back from evacuation for a short while, as my dad had moved house to Galpins Road, Thornton Heath. Thinking it would be safe to come home for a break and spend time with him,what a mistake that was. The germans bombers then decided to start on the airports and we were not far from Croydon Airport. We didn't have a shelter at this house and the raids were extremely severe and very frightening, my aunt and counsins were also staying at this time so some of us spent time under the kitchen table. We went to school one morning only to find the school canteen down a bomb crater and the school so badly damaged we were unable to go, that brought a smile to our face. My dad was able to come home some nights so we did all feel safer.
We did go back to the country and my mum and brother returned to London as he was 14 and had to start work. My sister and I remained until 1944 and returned due to my bad health caused through bad treatment during being billeted in a so called 'good house'. I was so ill I was unable to attend the Victory celebrations.