Those Time-Bombs

I was terrified of the air-raids. Wembley Stadium, just around the corner to our house, was used as an anti-aircraft (or "Ack-Ack") and searchlight depot, and so was heavily targeted by the German bombers. Two Air Raid Wardens used to take up their watch outside our house, because an adjoining alleyway gave speedy access to two other streets, and I always felt much safer as long as they were there; even more so when they came in to our kitchen, during a quiet patch, for a cuppa. It makes me smile now to think of the confidence their presence gave me. When they weren't around I'd sit with a cushion on my head. That, too, might protect me if the ceiling fell in. Some hopes! I didn't understand why my antics caused such amusement to the grown-ups. But as things got noisier, and the ground shook more often, not surprisingly my touching faith in wardens and cushions faded. Eventually we got a Morrison Shelter, which was like a steel table with a raised base and wire-mesh sides, that we caged ourselves inside once my mother, sister and I were all aboard. We slept - God knows how - in that for the latter part of the blitz. During the daytime it doubled as a ping-pong table, and provided a lot of fun. But before we got that, after the first few months of the blitz we slept in the London underground, usually at Swiss Cottage or St. John's Wood tube Station. It is astounding to recall, now, those platforms covered with sheltering families, with their improvised beds, packets of sandwiches and thermos flasks, bedding down the moment the last train had gone through, wherever they could find a space among all the other blankets and bolsters and overnight bags. And oh, how kind and helpful everyone was to one another. "Come on, dear - there's room for one more", and a harassed mother would pull her child a bit nearer, to make room for another. Of course there were very few men among us except for the elderly - and even they found more useful things to do if they could. Firewatching, plane-spotting - those terms took on a very different significance in those days. Everyone was cheerful, joking, making fun of the situation. It became a way of life. Once the trains started running again we all got up, gathered our strange array of bits and pieces, and went home. Most days after a bad raid we got used to seeing heaps of rubble where there'd been houses the day before. We were lucky; cracked walls, and a few tiles or a broken window, but the house remained standing. But one incident above all stands out in my childhood memory. That morning on coming home we learned that the previous night St. Augustine's Church nearby had been bombed, but no one had realized they'd dropped two bombs together - one timed to go off several hours later. The second, unsuspected bomb exploded in late morning, just when the crater left by the first bomb was full of rescuing air-raid wardens and neighbours searching for bodies and survivors. You can imagine the carnage. Another thing years later I remember extremely clearly. The first night the V1's or "buzz-bombs" came. Our beloved wardens, with one or two plane-spotting neighbours, called us out to see what they believed to be "some poor Gerry in trouble" - a plane with its tail on fire. One swore he could see that the "cockpit" was empty, and we assumed the pilot must have bailed out. We saw it dive and heard the "crash" as the "plane" exploded. It was not until the next day when news broke of this diabolical new weapon Hitler was throwing at us - and we realized what we'd seen. I think everyone who lived through those days will agree, we only have to hear a broadcast or recording of that distinctive sound, followed by sudden silence, to bring out the goosepimples and make one's hair stand on end - still! You never quite exorcise those memories.

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