My Wartime Experience

I was 10 years old when World War 2 commenced, and was living in Peckham SE London, and like thousands of other children at that time was evacuated away from the large cities and towns. In my particular case I together with my sister Olive, were evacuated to a large country house, called Parham Park, at Pulborough in Sussex. There were 30 children, mostly brothers and sisters, and we were allocated the bedrooms of the staff, above the estate office. We had our two teachers who travelled with us from Peckham schools, and we had a matron. The house was owned by the Rt. Hon Clive Pearson, and his wife Mrs. Alicia Pearson, and their immediate family of three daughters. I suppose we were among the luckiest evacuees in the country.
The ballroom was our dining area, and the other wing (it was a Elizabethan house) was given to us, as our classroom. We had 5000 acres to play in, except for certain areas that were off limits. In 1942, the remaining children that were there, were billeted around the area, to make way for the Canadian army to move in to half the house.

We used to watch the “Dog fights” over the South Downs, at one time, while we were enjoying lunch, a German fighter bomber, came out of the sky, with smoke and flames coming from its fuselage heading straight for the house, when all of a sudden, it turned, and headed back to the downs, and subsequently, crashed. Whether this was an act of God, or whether the pilot deliberately avoided this historic House, we will never know.

On another occasion, I and two friends were up on the downs playing, when a Messerschmitt 110 crashed about 500 yards from us. We went up to the plane, and arrived just as the pilot was leaving the cockpit. He spoke good English, and we were talking to him for 30/45 mins, before the soldiers arrived, and carried him away. Needless to say, we got a 1000 lines to write ”I must not go on to the downs without permission”, in hindsight ,I think we got off lightly.

Mrs. Pearson and family looked after us really well, I can remember when we arrived at Pulborough station, we were all herded into the cattle market, and originally, they selected 30 boys to go to Parham, in doing so, they separated quite a few boys from their sisters, I included, so you can imagine the screams, and arguments ,that followed, but no one listened, all the authorities wanted, was to billet everyone that day. When we arrived at Parham, Mrs. Pearson was appalled to learn that families had been broken up, although, she admitted that initially she had requested 30 boys, she assumed that ,only boys with no sisters would be selected. It was nearly two weeks before brothers and sisters, brother and brother were reunited, and Mrs. Pearson had a great deal to do with this.

Soon after we arrived (about 2/3weeks), Mrs. Pearson arranged for every child to be taken into Pulborough, and completely fitted out with clothes, everything from raincoats, underwear, shirts, woollies, socks and shoes. I do not think that she got an allowance for this, and I know that my parents did not have to pay, although they did have to pay a few shillings a week, for each child, to I assume the government.

Whilst at Parham, we had some very important guests come and go, mainly diplomatic, but one day, the Duchess of Kent arrived with her children, it must have been shortly after the Duke of Kent had been killed. Several of us were around the fountain in the courtyard, when the now current Duke of Kent and his sister came and joined us, and I nearly, accidentally, pushed him into the water.

In 1941 the Canadian army moved into the grounds of the estate, probably preparing for the Dieppe raid, and in 1942, the officers took over half the House, at which time we had to leave.

It was very sad leaving Parham, but they managed to keep my life long friend, Reg with me and we moved into a council house in Storrington, the home of Mr and Mrs. Denyer and their son Reg. We stayed a year, because in July 1943, we had to return to London to commence work.

My time spent as an evacuee, will have an everlasting effect on me, fortunately, for the good, because as I have stated before, we were the lucky ones, and although they were tragic times, especially for my parents, it was like one big, boys own adventure. I have kept in touch with Parham over the years, in fact last year we had a reunion, the first for 62 years,nine of us were present, I would like to know if there are still some of the evacuees living, who knows? If they are, they would all be 70 plus years.

Now my return to London, by the time I got back, the house that I had left in 1939, had been destroyed in the blitz, and my family had moved to New Cross, SE London. It was a large house that held two families, I slept on the middle floor. The reason I mention this, is because my first taste of an air raid, happened shortly after I returned. It was about 1am in the morning when I was awoken by my father, ordering me to go to the Anderson shelter in the garden; I said I would stay in my bed. The next thing I knew was the family upstairs, screaming as they run down the stairs, that their roof was on fire. That was good enough for me, and I too ran down the garden, I passed my father who had run back into the house to put the fire out, which he had succeeded in doing before the brigade had arrived, but he was in a very bad way with smoke inhalation. What I had experienced was an incendiary bomb raid, which was numerous in 1943, and nearly every house along the street had been affected.

We had raids like this through 1943 to early 1944,but we seemed to have more to fear from being hit by shrapnel from our own guns. I remember when I would visit the cinema at the Deptford Broadway, when you came out to walk home,, it was advisable to walk close to the shops or houses, to cut the risk of being hit, a friend of mine received an injury to his face, which required stitches, but I knew of one neighbour, who was killed while returning from the pub, I do not know why they did not issue civilians with steel helmets.
In June 1944, the V1 was launched upon us (Flying Bomb). One of the first places to get hit, was the Odeon cinema Deptford, which was not very far away. Fortunately, unlike the V2, which was to follow, we did receive the siren warning. From then on, you needed to keep your eyes and ears open. You could always hear them, but obviously if it was a cloudy day, you could not see them. In a funny sort of way, they were better than the traditional air raid, because at least you had time to take cover when the engine stopped, and not having to remain in the shelter for hours on time. On one particular occasion, I was on look out in the garden (we took turns) and I saw this V1 go flying over, so as I shouted it had gone, it made a complete U turn and came back into view, when the engine immediately stopped, it landed 500 yards away at the back of our house, in Goldsmith College grounds. These attacks lasted for 3 months, and a lot of children were once again evacuated to safety.

In September 1944, worse was to follow, it was the start of the V2 , a 15 ton rocket, with a 1 ton warhead, and we received no warning of the attack, they just fell out of the sky, and caused tremendous damage. When they first appeared, people thought that the Germans were shelling us from France, but the government did explain what they were, if that was any consolation. I had three near misses with the V2, and quite frankly I am lucky to be alive to tell the tale.

My first encounter happened when I was working at London Bridge, age 15.One of my duties, was to take the mail to be posted at Newington Butts, just past St. Georges church, at the corner of Great Dover Street, and then I would catch the no.21 bus home. It was 5.30pm, I was waiting to cross the road at St. Georges, when there was a blinding flash, and I was blown 10 feet in the air, and when I landed, the mail was floating down on top of me. A passer by picked me up, and then I could see the full extent of the explosion. On the opposite corner, Southwark Bridge Road/Borough High Street, Mosers factory had received a direct hit, and amidst the smoke and debris, there were injured/ or dead people all over the road. There was a telephone box, close by to where I was standing and there was a man inside still on the phone, although all the windows had been blown out. There was another man who had gone to his aid, but when I went help, he said keep away sonnie, you do not want to see this, nevertheless I did see, and the man was quite dead, and he was black and blue, and the man informed me that the blast had gone right through him, that really was my very first experience of the violence of war.

On another occasion, and this time I really was lucky. It was Saturday and I had just finished work at London Bridge(In those days, this was part of your working week 8 to 12).I used to catch the train to New Cross Gate station on Saturdays, when I would more often than not, visit Laurie Grove Baths. On this particular day, I had decided to go straight home, so I alighted at New Cross Station, the two stations are about a ½ mile apart, I had just crossed the road, when there was an almighty explosion and flash ,it was close by New Cross Gate. I made my way towards the smoke, and to my horror, found that Woolworth’s had taken a direct hit, it was absolute carnage. That time of day you would normally find babies in prams outside (they was not allowed to take their prams into the shop) and in any case, the store was always busy. The police kept everybody back, but I had seen enough devastation anyway, so I made my way home. All that weekend, police were calling on houses to notify loved ones of the fatalities. In all, I think 170 people lost their lives, they even found some bodies or parts on top of the town hall roof (opposite) some time after, that was by far the worst disaster I had seen, although my final experience with the V2 was, in some way, more traumatic.

It was my mothers birthday, and she was determined to have a high tea to celebrate, ,she had hung on to a tin of red salmon, for such an event. My father normally got home about 6.30pm, so while I was waiting I met two of my pals, on the corner of Shardeloes Road and St. Donnats Road and we were chatting and having a laugh. My mother called for me to come in, Dad was home, and we were just about to sit down, when the house wobbled, a bright flash and dust came down all over the table. My father grabbed a torch, and ran into the street, with me close behind, he stumbled, and immediately told me to stay where I was, but too late I also fell. My father shone the torch, and all that was on the pavement was the torso of a man. Ahead of us was the corner where we had been talking, that, and the rows of terraced houses had been reduced to rubble. The most harrowing moment, was seeing a woman trapped in the basement of her house, pushing her baby through what gap there was, the baby survived, but unfortunately, a gas main blew just as the fireman were about to free her. What had happened was fate, the V2 hit the tram lines, and that caused maximum devastation.

Yes we had the street parties when it was finally all over, a few in our Road did not make it, the ones that did, were truly thankful, but one thing for sure, if the civilians had not stood up, to all that Hitler threw at them, we could have landed up like France or Belgium, and who knows what sort of world we would be living in today.

Although I started out in the war a mere 10 year old boy, I quickly became a man by the age of 16, and sure enough, by the time I was 18 I was conscripted into the Royal Air Force, but that’s another story.

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