As I say, in 1942 and onwards the raids became sporadic, there was less everyday excitement and, as I grew older, I began to take an interest in the newspapers.  Early on in the war, one of the papers the Mirror I think ran a series of small articles called Get Your Nazi. This purported to show you how to kill Nazi invaders and, although I can’t recall many of the articles, I do remember one on how to use and maintain a .303 Lee-Enfield rifle.  This was pretty rich because it was published at a time when the Home Guard couldn’t get their hands on a modern Lee-Enfield rifle so where the average reader was supposed to get hold of one I can’t imagine. This was at the time when German parachutists were expected to drop from the skies at any moment.  It was an era of bizarre rumors. One of the most widespread of these was immortalised in Dad’s Army - that enemy spies, troops etc. were dropping by parachute dressed as nuns.  Even then I could see the funny side of a big hairy storm-trooper dressed as a nun in full habit, complete with wimple, dropping by parachute.  Presumably no one would dare to challenge a parachuting nun!  One other local rumour was that the rector of the local church went out at night signalling with a lamp to the German pilots flying above. The object of such a bizarre exercise was never explained by the rumour-mongers but I suppose it was all part of the hysteria whipped up by the Government about fifth columnists infiltrating our defences and the campaign about careless talk costs lives.  In fact I believe the number of German spies infiltrating in this Country was very small and remarkably inefficient.  I think most of the intelligence gathering was done in Switzerland, Ireland, Sweden, Spain and Portugal.  Another poster in this series was Be like Dad keep Mum.   This would be totally unacceptable in this day and age but it was a bit much even then.  AA guns and searchlights were being manned by women, WAAfs were plotting the movements of enemy aircraft and their presence on airfields put them at risk and a lot of women were working as clippies (bus conductors), in factories and on the land.

The careless talk posters were only one series of many in those days. One campaign I remember was Billy Brown of London Town who sanctimoniously admonished us not to tear off the anti-blast netting, which had been stuck to the windows of buses, trams and trains. The cartoon Billy Brown, who wore a raincoat and a hat, was saying I trust you to pardon my correction that stuff is there for your protection. 
A standard graffiti addition was Thank you for the information but I can’t see my bloody station.   The Dig for Victory campaign was another that went on for ages and one that Dad took seriously. He grew quite a lot of vegetables particularly runner beans, spuds, carrots and lettuces. The Browns next door kept chickens and Dad decided to keep rabbits to provide extra meat but, of course, we wouldn’t let him kill any of them and we ended up with about fourteen pet rabbits before he admitted defeat. They were finally wiped out by myxamatosis in the late forties by which time Dad had started and failed a similar project with ducks.  At least we did get eggs from these and very nice they were especially as they were a bonus addition to the egg ration.

As the war went on they held Wings for Victory weeks and the equivalent for the Army and Navy.  Exhibitions were staged and parades put on all to encourage us to contribute funds to provide planes, tanks, guns and ships. How much money was raised I don’t know. National Savings stamps were another popular way of extracting money from the populace and all the schools ran savings groups. Another wartime character was the Squander bug, a strange cartoon bug covered in swastikas whose aim in life was to induce us to spend money in ways which didn’t aid the war effort. Shops which were damaged by blast, put out notices stating Business as Usual and the phrase Don’t you know there a war on?  Was the universal answer to any complaint about anything.

I realise I have digressed from my newspaper theme.  One of the other things one of the papers published was a series on aircraft recognition. Silhouettes of Allied and enemy aircraft were published and, as the war progressed, I could recognise the vast majority of planes of both sides.  Not that I ever saw a German plane low enough to identify but we used to see Spitfires, Hurricanes, Wellingtons, Blenheims, Mosquitoes and, later on, Dakotas and Mustangs.  We didn't see many bombers as they were mainly stationed in East Anglia, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. I also took an interest in the progress of the war and avidly studied the latest campaign maps published in the papers.  These seemed to proliferate in direct proportion to the successes of the Allies. The more victories, the more maps.

Cartoon strips were a big part of the Mirror. The size of the papers was severely reduced   something like 8 pages but this didn't stop the Mirror devoting a whole page or more to strip cartoons. The most famous was, of course, Jane but my tastes in those days were more towards Buck Ryan a sort of early James Bond, Just Jake, Beelzebub Jones and, later on, Garth.

I remember the D-Day landings very well.  In April 1944, I had an abscess on my gum and they wouldn't take the toot out until the swelling had gone down. There were no antibiotics in those days so it took a couple of months to go down. I had a few weeks of real pain and difficulty in eating but finally I had an appointment at the clinic in Woolwich to have the offending tooth removed. This was the only unpleasant experience I have ever had at a dentist and that was due to two things firstly I had gas and secondly there was a real dragon of a nurse in charge. I think they should have unleashed her on the Germans they would have surrendered on the spot!
She certainly had no place in any job which had to do with children. Finally, feeling a bit woozy I left the clinic with Mum and when we got outside there were newspaper headlines all about D-Day. This was the opening of the second front which all the left wing politicians and activists had been calling for mainly by chalking slogans on walls.For some reason, all the aircraft had black and white stripes painted on their wings once the Normandy landings took place. I haven’t, to this day, found out why. Anyway the battles in France gave me an added area of interest in the war.
At some stage, Mr. Simpson, the Headmaster of the junior-mixed came back and the school was split again into infants and juniors. I think this must have been in 1943 because the eleven-year-olds began going to secondary and grammar schools again. My brother Fred left before that happened and I know that it had been completed before the end of 1944 because Mr. Simpson was there when the school was blast-damaged by a doodlebug.  Brother Pete was despatched to Fossdene Road School, just off Victoria way.

The doodlebugs had started in June 1944 I believe on the night of 13 June. By this time we no longer slept in the shelter but that night a raid started and went on all night.  Surprisingly, I slept through a lot of it. It was apparent that we were experiencing a different sort of attack from the usual bomber raids. For a start, there was the strange rough, throbbing note of the engines of the raiders and for those who had laid eyes on them there was the strange sight of a flame issuing from the rear of the plane. Many people, including some fighter pilots at first, thought that this meant they had been damaged but, of course, it turned out that this was just the propulsion unit.
Theories abounded about radio-controlled pilot-less aircraft, which wasn't too far from the truth   pilot-less they were but not radio-controlled.  They were just programmed to run out of fuel when they had done about the right number of miles and they were guided by some sort of inertial system.  I have never been technically minded so I don’t quite know how it worked.  I understand that false reports were made of where they were landing, with a view to getting the Germans to change the range, causing them to drop in the countryside rather than on London and other towns and cities. Although many people supposed that London was the only city to suffer the doodlebugs, other places were targeted too. However, I think it is fair to say that London bore the brunt of the attacks.

In the early days, the bombardment was intense but the authorities re-deployed the defences.  The coast was patrolled by Fighter Command, the AA guns were moved to form a screen behind the area patrolled by the fighters and the balloons formed the last line of defence just outside London.  In addition, Tempests were brought in and with their superior speed to the Spitfires and Hurricanes, were better able to deal with the doodlebugs. Because of this redeployment of the balloons, it was farewell to our friends in the WAAF. Notwithstanding the defences, doodlebugs still got through and it was one of these that killed J. She had, like a lot of children, come back from where she had been evacuated not long before the flying-bomb onslaught started.

I remember that Pete and I were in the garden with Mum, who was talking to Mrs. Brown, when a doodlebug came over.  We waited, as was our wont, for the engine to cut out but this one started to dive with its engine still going.  We too dived for the shelter- but I think I was the only one who made it. There was a loud explosion and it clearly was not far away. It had landed in Canberra Road on a house where J and her friend were having music lessons. J was killed instantly but her friend, though injured, survived although it seemed to change her personality and she became rather withdrawn. J was the only person I actually knew who was killed during the war. I only recently realised how remarkable this was when you consider the bombing we suffered and the number of men who took part in the fighting all over the world. 

It was also in 1944 that a doodlebug fell just opposite the school in Indus Road, causing considerable blast damage to the school.  As a result, we all had to go to Fossdene Road School.  Although I didn't realise it at the time this had a significant and permanent effect on my life.  Because we were sharing a school, our headmaster had very little administrative work to keep him busy so he selected seven of us and took all our classes. The tuition we got was quite intensive because there were so few of us and he could give us individual attention. As for us, there was nowhere to hide, no safety in numbers, no crowd to get lost in. The result was that we learned very fast and, in fact were taught things we would not have been taught in a class of 30 or more (yes we did have big classes in those days). The result was that we all passed our eleven-plus and went to grammar schools. Three of us went to the Roan School and went through our secondary education together. So it was thanks to a doodlebug, Mr. Simpson and the Education Act of 1944 that I went to a grammar school and got the education I did.

It was not long September 1944 before the V2 rockets began to arrive. There was no warning   just a bang followed by a loud rumbling sound, which we later learned was the sound of the missile arriving. They traveled faster than sound hence the delayed noise of the descent. Two of the worst incidents of the war occurred not far from where we lived. Firstly, there was the doodlebug which landed outside Marks & Spencer’s at Lewisham, killing more than 50 people, and the V2 which hit Woolworth’s at New Cross on a Saturday lunchtime when the area was packed with shoppers. There were, I think, 174 people killed in that one incident  the worst single incident of the war. We had a few other incidents in the area. I remember a V2 falling on the Brook Hotel in Shooters Hill Road, just as a bus was passing, with horrific results. One tower of Charlton House was demolished (by a V2 I think) and a doodlebug destroyed Charlton Station.  Oddly enough, Charlton House was restored very quickly but it was about thirty years before Charlton Station was, in any sense, rebuilt. The Childrens library was one of the casualties of the Charlton House bomb.

As the defenses became more efficient and the Allies advanced into France, the doodlebug raids lessened but didn't go away. Mobile rocket-launchers and V1s launched from Heinkel 111s ensured that the attacks went on. I remember when the first V2s fell, the rumor was that they were gas explosions.  I believe this was an officially-inspired rumor but it didn't last long.  As far as I was concerned, I very soon learned from Alec that they were rockets and that one had landed at Crockenhill.  He always seemed to have inside information presumably gleaned from his Dad who was the Head Warden in the area. I can’t remember when the blackout ended but I think it was before the end of the war.  Presumably when the danger from aircraft attack was over and only pilot-less missiles were coming over there was no point in the blackout.
It was surprising how one became used to the idea that death-dealing rockets could come hurtling unannounced from the upper atmosphere. I suppose that, as there was nothing that could be done about it and if you heard one go off it had missed you, there was little point in worrying.  I remember once when we were at school and one landed (I think it was in Railton Road).  After the initial buzz, no-one said anything about it except for Tony. He said that he had seen the windows and their frames come in and then return to their usual position. Mr. Hawksworth, a dour Yorkshireman, merely said, Aye, they do that and resumed the lesson.