Open Writing

We listened to the constant drone of the German bombers as they blackened the skies, flying low, relentlessly dropping their heavy bomb loads over London.

Their target was the docks . With the docks all ablaze and the sky glowing bright red it was easy for the planes to return the next night and follow the curve of the river. Inside the curve was the Isle of Dogs, all lit up, an easy target for the bombers. It was an awful feeling, knowing there were men up in the sky, intent on killing us. I imagined the faces of the pilots, their goggles, the leather uniforms they wore, and I was frightened.

We all felt so tired during the day, having been woken up so many times in the night . We knew that whenever the sirens sounded we had to get to the shelter quickly. To leave your lovely warm bed and go downstairs out into the cold night air and into the Anderson air raid shelter was no joke.
Dad had dug our shelter down into the ground. These shelters were sometimes referred to as ‘Dug Outs ’ . It was at the bottom of the garden, all covered with earth to camouflage it. Sometimes we were down there all night before the ‘All Clear’ sounded.

There were nights when we were forced to make the trip to the shelter three times . Just as we had settled down to sleep in the shelter the ‘All Clear’ would sound. We would trail back upstairs to bed . Then just as we were getting off to sleep , warm and cosy, the siren would sound again. Down we would all go, back to the shelter in the garden.
I remember my mother asking once when we were down in the shelter, “Where is Donald?’’ Donald, who was always a heavy sleeper, had not followed us . That was very worrying. Dad had to go back and fetch him. A bomb could have dropped and they both could have been killed.

We were among the lucky ones. Dad had painted the inside of our shelter with whitewash. Being a decorator he always made everything nice for us in the house, and now the shelter was our house too. He did his best to make us comfortable. The whitewash made the place much brighter. When the candles were lit it was nice and bright. I know a lot of shelters were very dark inside and were quite frightening to be in. Surprisingly, we could even speak of being cosy and comfortable. Being together was the most important thing in the world at that time and the shelter offered a sense of security . That was until a bomb dropped so near us that we felt as though we had all been thrown up into the air, spun around and then put down again, shelter and all.

There was a night when we could hear heavy footsteps walking over the top of us. Dad was not with us. Mum and I were awake, frightened in case it was a German who had managed to get out after his plane had been knocked down. We sat there terrified until the footsteps died away.

The next day we saw big footprints in the earth on top of the shelter. Someone said it could have been a scrounger . These were people who went searching in houses that had been bombed, taking the belongings that were left there.
At that time Dad was doing war work ‘over the water’. This meant he was across the river, on the other side of the Thames. When the sirens sounded, the tunnel was closed. Dad and many others were unable to get home and were ‘stuck ‘over the water’.

Mum used to be worried, and because I was the eldest she shared her worries with me. We made sure my brothers were never troubled by our fears. They were little and had to be protected as much as possible.

She would read to us from a novel ‘Sorrell and Son’ by Warwick Deeping. It was a sad story but a lovely one. I looked forward to Mum reading a piece each night but my brothers soon fell asleep. I was the only one listening to Mum after a little while.

Mum also used to knit socks for my brothers in the candle light, and some nights we would all play guessing games till we were tired and fell asleep exhausted.

I think my parents didn’t wait too long once they realised how determined the Germans were in their desire to destroy the whole of London. The Docks were their main target and that was the area where we lived.

We had all been under the illusion that the German planes would never be able to get through the barrage balloons that flew high in the sky over the city. Now we realised how wrong we had been.

On one particular night we went to see my father’s parents to ask them to move away with us. They said they couldn’t leave the rest of the family. That night, on our way home, the siren sounded earlier than usual . The streets were suddenly deserted. An Air Raid Warden directed us into a public shelter under an electricity showroom in Poplar.

It was already full, with beds on the floor, and people standing. We had no room to move. We were squashed together all night, standing in the same place. Suddenly there was an enormous crash. We could hear the sound of plaster falling.

People started to rush to the exit but were turned back and told to keep calm. We waited for another loud bang, but it never came. All we could hear was a rumbling sound, which seemed to be all around us.

Early in the morning, after the All Clear had sounded we walked to the bus stop to catch our bus home to ‘The Island’. We waited and waited. Mum began to get very cross because we were waiting such a long time and no bus had arrived.

It was decided that we had better start walking. We were all tired and worn out from standing eight hours without sleep. As we walked along the familiar areas we realised the devastation that had taken place while we were down in that shelter. There were houses still burning. People were standing in groups, crying.

Whole streets had gone. It was unbelievable. No one could imagine a bomb flattening a whole street of houses. This night was the start of The Land Mines.

We walked through the devastation, passing the shells of houses that had stood tall the night before, wondering what we would find when we reached Stebondale Street . Would Gran be there? And Uncle Bill? Would Aunt Con, Uncle Chris and their baby Terry be there?

We wanted to get home and find the answers, but our legs were tired and it took ages to reach home that day. We were lucky. Our house had been bombed but was not completely demolished and all our family were alive.

It was a nightmare. There was the smell of burning everywhere. Water was pouring out from the mains, flooding the roads. Chemical factories were still exploding . People walking about in a daze, not knowing what to do .

We saw people with blackened faces, crying because they had lost everything. Houses were still on fire. The London Fire Service was working so hard, but they were worn out, having worked all night fighting blazes in the docks.

These pictures remain vivid in the memory.

Our cat Ginge had managed to survive the night. He came up to us, purring and wrapping himself around our feet. I picked him up and cried, burying my head in his fur.

I cried then for Ginge, for myself, for everyone.