A Mopper's Lot: A Telegram Boy in London

I was 14 years old in 1942, I had left school and started work as a telegram boy (known as a 'Mopper') at Hammersmith Broadway Post Office.

We were issued with a uniform of navy blue with a red pin stripe, a pill box hat, a leather belt with a pouch to contain telegrams and, of course, a red bicycle. Gas masked were also carried but were never used.

The area we delivered to stretched from West Kensington to Fulham, Chiswick and Shepherds Bush. Apart from having to dodge around in the air raids we also had to suffer the horrible thick fogs known as 'Pea Soupers' and 'Smog'. which was yellow as it had a sulphuric content.

When a telegram was delivered we would always wait for an answer except for those where the envelope was specially marked to identify them as being bad news, usually of a soldier having been killed or was 'missing, presumed dead'. These we hated having to deliver. Our instructions were that we were to only hand the telegram to the person to whom it was addressed then turn round and walk away, sometimes rather hurriedly. I can remember delivering one such telegram to a 3rd floor flat in West Kensington and, having handed it to the lady turned to go back to the lift and whilst waiting for it to come I could screams and smashing crockery coming from the flat I had just left. That did upset me but that was a Mopper's lot!

In 1943 - we were living in Barnes, S.W London - a bomb struck an Incendiary Factory opposite us and our house was badly damaged. My sister and I were under the Morrison shelter ( a heavy duty table), my mother was on her way back from the kitchen getting a drink when the bomb struck and I can clearly remember that the front door came in down the hall passage and the back door came up the other way so that the two met and formed a tent like shape with my mother underneath them. She was lucky and only suffered a bruised arm.

We then had to walk from Barnes to our nearest friends at Putney for temporary shelter that night and for a short while. My father, who was in the RAF stationed in North Wales at the time found us accommodation at Wrexham where we remained until the end of the war. The Post Office at Wrexham had no vacancies for me so I took a new job at Wrexhem railway Goods Office and transfered to Paddington on our return to London at the end of the war.

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