Essay 1 of 7 - Early Days

Reminiscences from the period of WW2.
A collection of seven essays.

Author - Brian E. Dowden - born 8th. October 1933.

Introduction

Both during and after the war I lived on an estate built by the (then) London County Council in Carshalton, Surrey. I was thus some 10 to 15 miles away from the London areas that suffered worst in the blitz, but yet close enough to be affected by the war on a day-to-day basis. Noted below are my recollections of the period.

Essay 1 of 7 - Early Days.

I have no memory of the tensions that existed in the nation as 1938 progressed into 1939. Then, war with Nazi Germany was declared at 11-00a.m. on the sunny morning of Sunday 3rd September 1939, and I do recall a sombre mood on the part of my parents at that time. During the late morning or early afternoon on 3rd September I was allowed to go into the street and play as usual. My choice at the time was to take a single skate (I only possessed one skate) and to travel as fast as possible on the pavement along a down-hill part of a local main road called Wrythe Lane. As I was travelling on the skate the air raid warning siren began to sound. I was stopped in my travels by an adult and instructed to go home. This I did, and for the first of many occasions to come I was affected by the war. As an aside, I should add that the warning on that day was a false alarm.

After the ‘phoney war’ of late 1939 and early 1940 we children became concious of our nation’s problems, and indeed became involved in our own child-like ways. For example, during the Battle of Britain we were very aware of the fight for our survival that was taking place in the air, and indeed much of this activity took place directly above my home area. We young boys were not to be left out. During playtime at school we would form ourselves into ‘flights’ and ‘squadrons’ and then run around the playground, with arms outstretched as though they were wings, imitating the actions of our Spitfire and Hurricane aircraft. Among shouts of brrm-brrm, ee-ow and rat-atat-tat only German aircraft were shot down in our playground. In the Infants School the playground was shared by both sexes, but of course the boys and girls (outside) toilets were in separate locations. On one occasion I led a squadron of ‘fighters’, in line astern, through an archway off which there was the entrance to the infant girls toilets. With me not quite 7 years of age, leading a string of boys near the entrance to the girls toilets was seen as a serious offence. I was formally interviewed by Miss Purfield, the headmistress, and given dire threats of serious action if I should again be seen in this location. It is fortunate that the R.A.F. pilots who were saving the nation, and losing their lives in the process, were allowed to fly outside the immediate confines of their preferred areas of activity. What a shame I could not think of that argument at the time!

Also during the above period the Government made arrangements for children to be evacuated by sea to safety in Canada. I was a candidate for this evacuation and indeed had passed a medical examination. Presumably I was therefore on a list for imminent evacuation. Then, in mid-Atlantic, a small liner named ‘City of Benares’ carrying 90 children to ‘safety’ was torpedoed by a German submarine. Only seven of the children were saved, and two of these were found more by luck than by judgement. The evacuation programme was stopped with immediate effect and I never went to Canada. Perhaps for me it was a lucky escape!

In September 1940 I was promoted into the Junior School. This was also the month in which night-time bombing raids, known as the blitz, began over the U.K. Fortunately for us our area was not a priority target for the German bombers, however the experiences of this period were far from pleasant because many a night was spent in our Anderson shelter. It was my father who, some months earlier, had dug the pit for the shelter and then laid a concrete floor. The corrugated iron sections were then put in place, and the structure covered with earth and sown with mint. The finished article was about 2 metres long and 1.7 metres wide. Along the length of the shelter, on both sides of the door, and placed on an internal concrete lining about 0.7 metre high, were two wooden frames each about 1.9 metres long and about 0.6 metre wide. These frames had strips of metal attached and they were thus used as two bed bases. The floor of the shelter was covered by blankets, and any night-time calls of nature were satisfied outside this ‘cosy’ environment. This accommodation would have been adequate for my parents, myself and my 3 years-old sister, but however, we had a problem. At the time the Anderson shelters were issued our next-door neighbour did not want one. This family then moved house and our new neighbour would have liked to have an Anderson shelter - but it was now too late. Thus, in the spirit of the time, my parents invited our neighbours and their two children to join us in our shelter. Life at night in the shelter was more than somewhat confined.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.