At the start of WW2 I was 9 years old and living in Hackney, East London with my Father, Mother and younger Brother in a large Victorian house which we shared with my Grandfather and Uncle. Many from my School were evacuated as soon as War was declared but my Parents only decided to send me to join them a month into the war.
I joined a family in a little village in Norfolk who had a young Daughter of their own and another girl of my age from the same school. Although the village integrated us into their small school I was not happy, mainly because I did not relate to the other girl since I had led a sheltered life and the other evacuee was much more worldly wise than I and introduced me to some facts of life which my Mother would have been horrified about if she had known!
Many tear stained letters later imploring my Parents to deliver me from the hateful situation I found myself in, my Father arrived to save me from a fate worse then death (as I saw it then). He had managed to persuade a friend to use some of his precious petrol to drive to Norfolk and I clearly remember sitting in the dicky seat of this car with my Father on the drive back to London. Home at last!
However, things soon hotted up, barrage balloons were floated aloft from the Park opposite our house and gun encampments were not far away and as the Blitz intensified so did the noise, mainly at night. Our house had a semi basement where we tried to sleep on camp beds and deck chairs, my Brother being in a cot.
My Uncle worked at the War Office and as they would not release him for National Service, every other night he went on duty in the Home Guard so that he could ‘do his bit’ in addition to the important work he did in the day time. My Father had very poor eyesight and was rejected by the Forces so on the alternate night to my Uncle’s duties, he went on the switchboard at the local Fire Station, in addition to his day job. Dad’s praise for the Firemen in London during the Blitz was unstinted - they were all heroes, each and every one.
We were persuaded to try the Public air raid shelters close by in the Park but the experience was not good and we decided, thereafter, to take our chances in our own home! The shelters were lined with wooden seats on which you had to make yourself comfortable as best you could but the worst thing, and I remember it now, was the stench from the toilets. These were small cubicles stationed at the bend of each tunnel with, I suppose, a chemical bucket and the privacy was just a curtain!
One night Hitler decided to set fire to London, sending down from his Bombers a plethora of baskets containing small incendiary bombs which exploded either just before or on hitting the ground. It was such a staggering sight, my Mother took me to our back door to show me and I remember clearly how pretty it looked - just like bonfire night! Little did I realise what damage and heartache was being caused.
For some reason on that particular night, both Father and Uncle were home. Uncle ran up the road to help a neighbour whose house had been hit but shortly afterwards it was noticed that we also had an incendiary on our own roof.
It was lodged in the chimney breast of the fireplace in my bedroom and Dad climbed up into the loft and during his haste across the rafters he managed to put his foot through my bedroom ceiling three times. When everything quietened down and we were back in our sub basement, I can remember Mother bathing Dad’s grazed and painful thighs. He was our hero that night.
As the Blitz intensified, Father insisted that Mother, Brother and I were evacuated and we were sent to friends in Kings Lynn. It was whilst we were there that our home was destroyed by a huge land mine and Grandad and Uncle, not to mention the family dog, were killed instantly.
Luckily, Father was on duty that night although he had not felt too well that day. He had debated whether to give it a miss but as he wanted to support the brave firemen, he went in and his sense of duty saved his life.
The poor man came home from his duties at dawn, turned the corner into our road and saw his home razed to the ground with his Father and Brother under the rubble. Mercifully, they had been killed outright.
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