Dodging the doodlebugs June 1944

"Francis, take that firewood round to Kathleen's please" my mother called out.My married sister Kath lived a few streets away in a Warners flat in Leyton, East London. Everybody had coal burning fires in those days and having a supply of kindling wood to get a fire going saved a lot of time each day. I think it must have been specially purchased as it was in a hessian sack as was the custom then. It was a warm summers day in June 1944 and I was a scrawny 14 year old. Hoisting the sack on to my right shoulder and getting on my bicycle, steering one handed I set off for the short journey. Leyton, like a large part of the suburbs of London was mostly streets of terraced houses pretty well back to back except that we did have small back gardens between the rows of houses. We lived at number 18 King Edward Rd.

When I reached the next street I became aware of people looking up and turning round anxiously. These were the well known signs of the approach of a V1 flying bomb or "doodlebug" as they were known. Nobody knew where they were going to fall, you just had to listen and wait. If the engine noise continued some other poor devil was going to cop it. If it cut out near you, dive for cover. I stopped, foot down on the ground, sack still on my shoulder and looked up - just in time to see the doodlebug swoosh down and explode on to King Edward Rd, my road.

I don't remember being deafened by the explosion but it was suddenly raining bricks! I dropped the bike and sack of wood and ran into the nearest shop doorway. In those days we lived on constant alert for bombs and seeking cover, any cover, was second nature to everyone young or old. After what must have been only a few seconds I knew I had to go and find out what had happened to my family.

Picking the bike up I ran with it (there was too much rubble in the road to ride) back round the corner. Reaching the top of the road I was horrified at the sight.The whole of the road was one big black choking cloud of dust and smoke. It was totally impenetrable and there was no way to see what damage had been done. My heart dropped like a lump of lead into my stomach. To this day I have no recollection of anybody else being there at that moment. Perhaps as I was just around the corner I was the first on the scene and I was experiencing the lull that is often described immediately after an explosion. But I had to find out what happened so I slowly walked into the black cloud. As the dust cleared a little I could see that this end of the road was not badly damaged but as I got further in, the damage was worse. Reaching number 18 I found there were no windows and the front door was jammed half way down the hall passage. I called out to my mother but there was no reply. Heaving at the door I managed to get to the back of the house just in time to greet my mother with two younger brothers, Anthony 6 and Raymond 2, safe and sound coming in from the garden. She had heard the approach of the doodlebug and guessing it was heading in our direction grabbed the children and managed to get to the Anderson air raid shelter at the bottom of the garden just in time. In the panic mother could not find my other brother Leo, 10, who she assumed was out playing and feared the worst. As we clambered over the wreckage inside the house the door to the downstairs (and only) toilet opened and there was Leo, dazed but right as rain. He had been sitting on the toilet in the "smallest room" on the back of the house away from the main blast and it was the only place in the house where the ceiling didn't come down! Hence the saying that accompanies him in the family "Don't worry about Leo, he will always come up smelling of roses"!

By this time Police and Rescue personnel had arrived and were calling at each house to see if anyone needed help. When we got outside we found further down the road the damage was total. Half of King Edward Rd had been flattened and tragically several of our neighbours had been killed including children. It was devastating and we were all in a state of shock. My other sister Eugene,16, arrived having been sent home from work when word got round that our road had been hit. Miraculously it seemed to me, in no time at all, the WRVS refreshment van arrived with delicious tea and sandwiches. As the long summer evening turned to a blackened dusk we gathered at Kathleen's ( she never did get that firewood) to get some belated sleep. The next day we were at our house rescuing what we could when we had the welcome sight of my Dad walking down the road. He was a Flight Sargeant in the RAF and had been given immediate compassionate leave from his station in Lincolshire to help us and to get us resettled somewhere. Thats another story.

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