Rat-a-tat-tat

There was no room for an Anderson Shelter in our back garden. It was more like a back-yard. When the air raids first started, we sheltered in a cupboard under the stairs; originally a coal store. Four of us, plus a bachelor friend of my parents, huddled inside. This claustrophobic experience not made any easier by the friend (being of a nervous disposition). We counted each bomb down to earth.

Later, residents in our street were allocated space in the Surface Shelter just outside our home — This was a sturdy brick construction with a reinforced concrete roof. We shared a cell-like compartment with our next door neighbour. We also used a communal underground shelter which was further afield, but the vibrations as bombs dropped were more noticeable in there.

We ended up sleeping in various places including at a friend’s home in Hedge End. I distinctly remember the wardrobe door handle vibrated when aircraft approached. I also remember sleeping on the floor of a church hall at Baddesley, and under a billiard table in a house in Ampfield!

In the summer of 1941, some relatives in Sway invited my cousin and me to stay. My mother put us on the train at Central Station, but as the train pulled out it was machine gunned. I remember the sound - “rat-a-tat-tat” -quite distinctly.

On one occasion my Dad was late home. There was a raid over Woolston. We were looking out for him and he appeared in our road riding his bicycle with his head swathed in bandages. Mum was very worried, thinking he’d been injured, but it had been a windy day and he had got some grit in his eye. An enthusiastic first aider attended to him.

I remember we had blackout curtains and brown paper strips on windows to help prevent flying glass when the bombs fell. There was no street lighting and air raid wardens patrolled the streets to check on the blackout.

Dad did fire watch duty on premises and we went with him sometimes.
One day the woman opposite us had an incendiary bomb drop through her roof, but luckily they managed to put the fire out. Another time we had a close shave when our back door was blown off its hinges by the blast from a land mine that landed in Hoglands Park.
Shrapnel was a common sight in the roads, and barrage balloons in the skies, and occasionally, an aerial dog fight.

Of course there was rationing, of food and clothes. I remember the coupons that were torn out of your ration book and the queues that formed for fish, cigarettes, everything.

I remember being struck by seeing the rubble and damage to my neighbourhood on the way to school. I attended the Secondary School (Central District Girls' School). We didn’t have a uniform. A typical day started with lining up in the playground, assembly every morning, with prayers and hymns. Then it was always mental arithmetic. Classes were Maths, English (including spelling), Literature, Art, Geography, Domestic Science (from age 11 onwards), History, Reading aloud, Simple physical exercises, Sewing lessons, Singing lessons, Religious Education (always from the bible, no other religions). Being a town school there were no outdoor games, but simple indoor team games when we wore sashes, the blue/greens against the yellow/reds.

The bombing was terrible. I remember a shelter (where Debenhams now is) received a direct hit and many people were killed. One day some of the older girls who had been picked for a visit to the Art Gallery under the Town Hall were killed in a raid. I was one of the children chosen by the headmistress to lay the wreath at the cenotaph in their memory.

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