Doodlebugs, Air-raid shelters, Gas-masks

We were bombed out of our Highgate flat - the Anderson shelter was, as they tended to be, ankle deep in water, so we were sleeping under the dining room table... I have a sharp visual memory of being wheeled down the front path as we left, and I can still see the shards of stained glass from the front door on the black and white tiled path...

Later, with my parents, we were walking when a V1 went bumbling overhead - my feet didn't touch as they ran with me to a nearby shelter - by the time we reached it, the V1 had just missed the TV tower at Alexandra Palace.

I was seven when the war in Europe ended. I remember being amazed that next day there was still a news programme on the wireless - as up till then it had all been about war I thought The News would end when it finished!

I remember my Gran had all the family's gas masks, including my baby one, in a cupboard for years after the war. I remember being allowed to play with them occasionally and I also remember the funny rubbery smell emanating from the masks. If memory serves me they were all handed in sometime around 1950.

And if you blew hard while wearing one you cold make a very rude noise as the air escaped at the sides - such fun!

I was born in The Battle of Britain. We were living in Salford, close to Manchester dock which were an obvious target, so my mother found us a holiday cottage in the village of Tottington, near Bury, which had been requisitioned by the local authority. We had a very enjoyable few years there (so I am told) and then, ironically, we were bombed out. The rumour was that all German bombers had to get rid of all their load, so they just dropped their last one on this country village on their way back from Manchester. 13 people died - ours was the last one standing. I can remember sitting in an armchair and feeling silky stuff all over me - I was covered in soot from the open chimney. If the bomb had been dropped a few seconds later, all my family would have been killed. We were taken to the local squire's house, which was being used as a rest centre, and we had to 'do a turn' to keep ourselves amused. My sister tells me that I was first up, singing a Bing Crosby song - she hid under the table. That sums up our personalities pretty well!
We were moved to another holiday cottage in the neighbouring village of Hawkshaw, and on VE day, 1945, I won a game at the street party for knowing who ran up the clock. Toys were virtually unavailable during the war, so this was very memorable.
My father was in the RAF - he enlisted as he was too old to be conscripted. My mother always said he just did it to get away from domestic responsibilities. He had a very cushy war, working on aircraft repair at Coningsby,Lincolnshire I remember the excitement when he came on leave, because he saved all his chocolate ration, and he also made doll's furniture for my sister and me, using scraps of metal from the damaged planes.
However, he was a very selfish man and even though he was offered a job locally and my mother and all four children desperately wanted to stay in that lovely area, he insisted on going back to Salford to be near his brother and sisters. We moved back on my fifth birthday, to a horrible beetle-and-mice infested house in a back street.
I have always hated Salford and was so happy when we moved to a brand new council house on an 'overspill' estate at Little Hulton when I was 13.
My mother's younger brother was lost in action - he was in the merchant navy escorting Atlantic convoys (their contribution has never been properly recognised) but otherwise she always said they were the happiest years of her life.

Wiil this do . . . ?

On 21st July 1944 I was 10 years and 8 months old. We lived at "Newbury", 37, Hemingford Road, North Cheam, Surrey a house which no longer exists having been demolished about 1960 to make way for redevelopment.

I was home from school so I presume it was the summer holiday. My mother and I were having lunch when we heard a V1 approaching. There were very common at the time and we had learned to tell when they were merely somewhere about, or when they were getting close. We both realised quickly that this one was coming our way fast, so we dived into our lounge where the Morrison shelter was. The noise of the V1 ceased but I never did hear any explosion. There was a great commotion and everywhere, indoors and outdoors, there was thick yellow smoke or dust. I had (with great presence of mind) taken my rice pudding with me to the shelter and was mortified to find it was full of bits of lead (from our leaded light windows) and glass fragments.

Gradually the smoke and dust cleared and we could see that the house was OK, but had lost many of its windows. I remember that there were lengths of curtain entangled in the trees in our road. Neighbours were out and about checking on themselves and each other, and we could see that a house at the end of the road was rubble. The rescue squads were soon on the scene and in action.

My mother used a neighbour's telephone to speak to my father at work in Epsom, and he got permission to leave work and came home.

Later on a lorry appeared and the men in it enquired of my father for a certain name and address of a house allegedly unoccupied which we did not know, and said that they had come to remove the furniture. He quickly deduced that this was a ruse, that in the confusion someone might say "Oh, you must mean so-and-so" and would direct them somewhere, the furniture would be removed, and would never be seen again. Opportunist looters in fact. Father said that there was no such address and advised them to remove themselves as quickly as possible, which they did. That evening I asked him what could be done about this sort of thing ? He said that the police were far too busy with all the V1's dropping, and if it got worse we might have to form vigilante patrols. That was the first time I ever heard that word. He went on to say that he had been on such work before (he was a white collar City of London worker) and that they had gone about in pairs armed with pickaxe handles. On reflection I think that this must have been at the time of the General Strike in 1926.

The story which circulated about the bombing was that a family at the end of the road (not known to me) had had a wedding. After the ceremony the party went to the "Queen Victoria" hotel at the crossroads of Malden Road and London Road in North Cheam, and that after a time some people said that they would go home and put the kettle on, and that by the time the rest followed tea would be ready. They did this, the V1 fell, the tea makers were killed, and the party came home to find the house a ruin

I presume therefore, that the tea makers were the Mr and Mrs Bennetts shown in the CWGC records under "Civilian Casualties".

My only puzzle is that on the modern Google Street View the house which was destroyed seems to be numbered in the 340s, whereas the house number in the record is 338, which Google shows as further to the northwest. It may be that there has been new building and the houses have all been renumbered.

The house demolished stood on the northwest corner of Malden Road and D'Arcy Road, but I think that the house on the opposite corner to the southeast was also badly knocked about. My memory of this is confirmed by a map cut out of a newspaper and pasted in a scrapbook by one of my parents.

We lived for many months afterwards with most of our window frames sealed against the weather with black roofing felt. Two or three lights were covered in a sort of oiled white cotton so that light filtered in. I think this continued well into 1945 until it was replaced with plain glass, and then some time after that the plain glass went and we reverted to the leaded lights of old. And I think that some of this work was done by Canadian troops. This was a strange period (the latter part of 1944 and the early months of 1945) because on the one hand there was a tendency to say "Oh, the blooming war's nearly over now, so why can't they get on with the war damage repairs ?" whilst on the other, we were digesting (or trying to) the news and the pictures coming through of the terrible scenes at the Belsen prisoner of war camp, and I think everyone was pretty confused and tired by this time - and at the back of it all we knew that the Far East business was far from over. So it was that when the atomic bombs were dropped, and Japan surrendered (though not immediately) the general feeling round our way was "good thing too, serve 'em right !". Only later, when the memories of only a few short months before began to fade, did the opposite opinion begin to be voiced and to gain ground.

Pleased to say I was born just 3yrs after that. I remember my mum with ration books though still up to the coronation and lots of bombsites around well into wth 50s though.

I wasn't born! Not til dec 44

I was just going to add to the thread when I had genuine déja vu. I had already contributed!

I was 4 when the Battle of Britain began. I remember being out for a walk with my mother and seeing formation after formation of planes going overhead. Somebody picked me up and ran with me - I remember seeing the leafy stony path as a blur under me as I was carried along. We went to the nearest house, down into their shelter. I remember, years later, being in the bath and hearing a doodlebug approaching and going down to where my brother and I slept, under the stairs. Another doodlebug fell in the village, in the night, killing an old lady. The village was also hit by a V2 rocket - I heard the explosion on my way to school, 7 miles away. My father went on 5 North Atlantic convoys to Russia, on an aircraft carrier. I learnt to distinguish the sound of 'our' aircraft from German aircraft. I heard a recording of an air-raid warning siren recently - still brought a feeling of panic. My parents separated soon after the war and later divorced.

For many years after the war, our fire station used the air-raid siren to alert fire-fighters to the fact that they were needed. It could be heard all over the town and beyond. It always made my hair stand on end.

Elegran , what you describe so well was an Anderson shelter. The Morrison shelters were posh ones that were inside the house and were like a cage with a steel top and struts and mesh sides .They were as high as a table and had a door in the side so that you could crawl in.And, yes ,Jessm, there certainly are some GNs who are over eighty!

Yes, Hunt I realised that about 10 seconds after I had posted - should have previewed it first. I rescinded at once.

We did not have a posh Morrison shelter - we had a chunky dining-room table.

I am post war, I'm afraid. Just! Part of the boom.

I was born in 1946 but ration books are still part of my childhood memories. The sirens were still being tested weekly and we still had the Anderson shelter in the garden.

I was born in 1960. My dad was called up in ww2, he will not talk about what happened, and most from that generation will not, main reason too painful.

I dunno -- a lot of Utility (CC41) babies here! (I used to tease my brother by saying that he was just a 'Utility' baby - he did get cross!)

I was born in 1932.
Our family were on holiday at Brighton in 1939 and I remember Chamberlin, the PM, announcing that we were at war with Germany.
The coast was immediately made out of bounds and masses of barbed wire suddenly appeared on the beaches.
I was 7 and we were told to sign in at the local School.
This meant that the Schools were overcrowded, So we had half days, alternately!
After a few weeks nothing seemed to be happening, so we returned to London.
We stayed as the Blitz started. London being heavily bombed in 1940-41, we were evacuated to Cambridge! (Where I studied, of course!) Hence my posh accent - I am from the" Lambeff Walk" area of "Sarf Lunnun" - innit?

Our evacuation is another story, but a few days later, our air raid shelter, which was a communal one, dug out from the central green space, known as "The Square", got a bomb on the corner which was where we had our sleeping space.! There are so many memories! Our house, opposite the shelter, was badly damaged, while the houses other side were totally destroyed..

I could write a book ab out my "adventures! I once saw a V2 rocket explode in the sky. We counted from the flash in the sky to the "rumble" and estimated it about 10-15 miles high! We were playing at throwing the ball high to each other, when we saw the flash and first puff of smoke!

That's all for now folks!!

Iwas born in 1944 so no war time memories other then the ones my parents told me. We left the country in 1946 and returned in 1953. I remember my grandparents picking us up from Euston Station, our boat came in at Liverpool, and they drove us in two cars due to all the luggage, to their home in Uxbridge. I do remember driving through London and seeing large gaps between the buildings which I later learnt was due to bomb damage. My grandparents' air raid shelter in the garden had been turned into a potting shed. My brother and I loved to play in it and called it 'our hut', but my mother couldn't bear to go inside it brought back to many bad memories of the Blitz - being near an airfield didn't help during the war.JessM sort of resent your remarks about the English twiddling their thumbs until the Americans arrived. I think my late father who would have something to say about that. I'm sure you made your remarks in jest but do be careful not to offend. I'm sure there are a number of Gransnetters lost their fathers or have quite strong memories of the war.

Hi Dorsetpennt,

Some mems of my evcuation!
We were lucky, because our Mum had a baby , my younger bro. and I , we were kept together as a family group.
We had to meet , with others ,to get on a coach, to be taken to a main line London station - can't remember which one, but it went from Kennington, and crossed the river. That part of London was all warehouses on the waterfront. The fires and smoke were still very evident from the previous night's air raid. A few weeks later the whole area was subjected to intense fire bombing. The East End was almost obliterated in places!

The train was loading with children and adults, all with cardboard identity labels attached. Blinds had been drawn over the windows, presumably to stop us seeing the destruction all around!
A little girl in our carriage trapped her fingers when the door was slammed shut. Arriving at Cambridge we were met by officials who took charge of the "chaos". Every child was given an injection against TB, which was quite common then.-
I fainted!! Next, something like a cattle /slave market. We stood and local people came and chose who to have!
Again ,we were lucky. Being a family of four, made it difficult to accomadate us all. We went to an elderly gentleman who lived alone in a two bedroom house. It turned out to be a very good billet. He was a retired RSPCC oficer, and he gave us the freedom of the house. apart from his own rooms.
Mum was taken ill, and had to go to Hospital. Our old befriender had died a few weeks earlier. After family discussion we moved in with family friends in Feltham. Again we were lucky,as a short while after leaving Feltham, their house got a direct hit and all were killed!
What memories!

Yep! A few of us Oldies still alive and kicking (just about!!)
I was born at a very early age. in 1932 - still not got over it!!

Mmmm.

Lived in London throughout the second world war, not evacuated like most of my friends, but when they were home we enjoyed playing the in the bombed out buildings, collecting shrapnel, and doing all sorts of things that would be OH! so anti 'elf and safety. We were bombed out, and we have a friend who was staying with his aunt and his home was blown out of the ground, with his mum and dad. He had absolutely nothing to left remind him of them, or his childhood, because he was too young to remember too much, which I found very sad.

I was born in 1940 and at the time lived in Harlington on the northern edge of what is now Heathrow. My father worked on radar at EMI in Hayes - reserved occupation. Heathrow was an RAF station - my mother told the story of how she was carrying me as a baby a few weeks old across to see my grandmother who lived behind us and as she was walking through the pathway between the gardens she heard a plane, looked up and saw a swastika and the face of the pilot! When she got to my grandmother's she and my aunt went mad - my mother had failed to hear the siren - must have been me crying!
In 1943 we moved from the maisonette to a house in Bedfont - the other side of the airport which they bought and my parents lived there for the rest of their lives. We had a Morrison shelter in the dining room with the mattress from my parents bed on the floor and the mattress from the cot slung on its base at their feet. My father as well as working long hours was a seargent in the Home Guard and also did fire watch in the area.
Before we had the shelter we used to go into the under stairs cupboard when the sirens went and of course one night got locked in - Dad had a toolbox in there and was able to take the latch off from the inside.
When we visited my other grandmother in London for years after the war the scenes of devastation were dreadful as we went from the Tube station on the bus. Whilst travelling on the tube on one of these journeys an American soldier came and sat next to me and opened what to me seemed an absolutely HUGE box of sweets and offered them to me. I was so astounded I could do nothing - my mother realising took a couple and thanked him and said that was plenty for me.
The anti aircraft guns were sited on what in later years became the school playing field and I remember seeing the searchlights going up into the sky. Ican remember the VE day party and going in the fancy dress parade as United Nations - just being formed I think - I had a skirt made of blackout fabric and my father stencilled the names of all the countries over it. The top was made form a couple of flags - I still have those and also my fathers home guard helmet etc plus photos of him and my uncles digging out for my grandmothers Anderson shelter.
For some years after the war we could walk across what is now Heathrow to get to my grandmother's in Harlington - at that time Hatton Road, which now stops at the junction with the Great SW road went all the way to Harlington Corner.
It must have been shortly after the war and we had POW working building prefabs - we had to walk past them to get to the shops - my mother never went out without wearing a hat and they were always lovely - I can remember being annoyed when one started calling out to her as we went past - I thought it was very inappropriate ( must have been all of 5) but it made me look at her again and I can remember thinking how great she looked in her hat! I can also remember very indignatly telling my father when he came home. We thought the prefabs were wonderful because they had a fridge!
I can remember walking to the local shops when sweets came off ration and seeing queues snaking along the street outside all the shops which sold sweets and chocolate.
Since retiring I have gone back into schools a few times and taken all the bits and pieces - helmet, gas mask and bag with the tubes of cream in, photos etc -and talked to classes of children who had WWII as their history topic.
I think it is lovely how they still have service of remembrance at the cenotaph in France on 8 May after a service in the local church and whole villages turn out including many children and they all lay flowers.

I was three years old, we were at Grans house and someone had given me a toy machine gun, you turned a handle that clicked on a bit of tin and it made a ratatatat noise. We heard the doodle bug coming towards us, I went to the front door of the house and pointed my gun at the doodlebug and "fired". The doodlebug engine stopped and it fell into a nearby field. For years and years (I still believe it) I shot it down.

An only child. The return of my father from the war and my consequent demotion at the age of eleven from being my mother's 'little man and sharer of the many problems' back to 'the child' is my worst memory.