My earliest memory of the war and anything to do with it was of being in the cinema with my mother watching what I can only suppose was a newsreel about the forthcoming blackout which showed aeroplanes flying over London, presumably testing the efficiency of the blackout.  I can't remember anything about the film we had gone to see, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the cartoon version of Gulliver's Travels which was most memorable for me because my father fell asleep near the beginning of it and didn't wake up until it was over!  But I digress.  When we got home I remember my parents talking about the blackout and the possibility of air-raids.  Suddenly, I was frightened, although of what I didn't know and I began to cry.  I remember Dad saying, "He'll be all right, he's just got the wind up."  This was quite effective as I stopped crying to put my mind to the question of what the hell 'got the wind up' meant! This incident must, I think, have taken place before war was actually declared, as did the erection of our Anderson air-raid shelter. 

This latter was achieved by two lugubrious workmen, presumably from the local Council, Arthur and Alf.  Arthur was a small, neat, bespectacled man dressed in immaculate blue bib-and-brace overalls and a cap, whilst Alf was tall, gangling and untidy with a battered brown trilby.

I don't know how long it took them to erect the shelter but it was at least two or three days and more than likely a week or so.  I watched, fascinated, as they dug the biggest, deepest hole I had ever seen in my five short years.  I think I must have been on holiday from school at the time, as I seemed to be there all day and every day as the work progressed.  Unless, of course, I hadn't yet started school.  Arthur apparently had an ulcer and every day he brought with him an enamel dish containing a cold rice pudding, which my mother would heat up for his lunch.  Whether Alf partook of the rice pudding or brought his own lunch I don’t remember, if, indeed, I ever knew. 

It is odd the small details one can remember whilst being unable to recall the larger picture.  I remember they had great difficulty in matching up the J-shaped segments of corrugated iron which formed the sides and roof of the shelter and they asked to borrow a poker, which they used as a lever and which they returned to us bent almost double.  Even though Dad did his best to straighten it out, the poker never again achieved straightness during its lifetime. When the shelter was finished and Arthur and Alf had departed to erect other shelters and doubtless bend other pokers, we had a rather unimposing structure of galvanised corrugated iron sunk into the ground and covered over with the earth which had been dug from the hole.

This earth tended to percolate through the roof where Arthur, Alf and the poker had not been entirely successful in lining up the constituent pieces.  The floor was bare earth and the whole shelter smelt of damp earth, reminiscent of a freshly-dug grave.  In fact, the whole edifice was most unprepossessing and I think, at that stage, we probably all felt that we'd sooner take our chances with the bombs if ever they came, rather than spend any length of time in there.

However, Dad soon began to make the shelter more habitable and more proof against high explosive, with materials, which I can only assume were illicitly obtained from his employers.  Firstly, he concreted over the earthen floor, using an old bedstead as reinforcement.  Then he piled sandbags around the front of the shelter and fitted a door to the bare opening which formed the entrance.  Soon, assisted no doubt by my feet and those of my brothers, the sandbags began to split and Dad covered them with a cement wash, which didn't help.  In fact, it made them brittle and soon the sand began to leak out.  Nothing daunted, Dad covered them with concrete so that the shelter had an imposing concrete facade. Next, he built a wall, two bricks deep, in front and to one side of the door, and concreted a sort of roof over the enclosure thus formed.  I reckon we had the most bombproof Anderson shelter in the whole nation, if not the whole universe and we always felt that only a direct hit would harm us. 

Dad then got to work on the inside.  He filled the gaps which leaked earth into the shelter with concrete and then he painted the inside with the ubiquitous cream and green paint that was used in those days.  Dad fixed a shelf along the back of the shelter and the addition of a couple of candles and two oil lamps gave us light and a little heat. All this took some time and was done progressively over a period of some months.  Exactly how long it took I don’t know but my memory tells me that it had been completed by the time that the Blitz really got under way.  At some time later we were issued with bunks for the shelter but I believe this was after the Blitz had started.

It wasn't until fairly recently that I consciously realised that we were lucky to have a garden in which to have the Anderson erected.  Those people without gardens had to rely on public shelters which were not exactly comfortable even if they were, in fact, there at all.  Later, I know they issued Morrison shelters to people without gardens, they were a sort of reinforced cage which was kept indoors and was supposed to protect the occupants from being crushed by rubble in the event of a bomb hitting the house.

I remember very clearly the first day of the war.  It was a sunny Sunday and Dad was listening to the radio or wireless as we called it in those days.  We had only recently rented this wonder of the age from Radio Rentals and it was state of the art for the time.  Unlike the wirelesses of our neighbours, it worked off the mains (from one of the only two electric sockets in the house) and had an indoor aerial, a wire which ran round the picture-rail. 

I think Dad was listening in anticipation of an announcement about the declaration of war.  At my age, I didn't really understand exactly what was going on but I imagine that the news about the ultimatum was common knowledge and that the Chamberlain broadcast had been announced in advance.  Anyway, I remember hearing Mr Chamberlain making his announcement about the declaration of war.  Shortly after that, the air-raid siren went off and we all repaired to the shelter but instead of the expected drone of bombers, we very soon heard the 'all-clear.' Apparently this was a false alarm.

 It was a long time before we heard the siren when it really meant that there were bombers on the way as we entered what became known as 'the Phoney War.'  It was during this period that our lives began to really change.  Ration books were issued, I qualified for a green one, brothers Pete and Fred for a blue one whilst Mum and Dad had buff ones.  We all got an identity card with our registration number on it.  (It is still with me to this day as my National Health number, a change made in 1948 on the advent of the NHS). 

A lot of the children were evacuated, my sister Ivy went but Fred, Pete and I stayed.  I can't remember who of the children in our street were evacuated but I know that the Browns next door didn't go and a family up the road sent their daughter Joan but kept the two boys at home.  One of the reasons I can't remember exactly who went and who didn't was because, at various times during the war, children drifted back and this was to have tragic consequences for Joan in 1944.

My brother Reg had joined the RAF as a regular some years before the war broke out and Alf was called up and joined the Royal Fusiliers.  I only saw him in uniform once and that was when he came home on leave, bringing his rifle with him.  I remember this being propped in the corner of the front room, behind the wireless and being told off by Dad for playing about with it.  Mind you, I couldn't even lift it!  Later Alf transferred to the Royal Artillery.  I remember we used to get letters from Reg with all sorts of exotic stamps on them, from Egypt, Iraq and Ceylon among others.

The ground floor of our school, which comprised the infants' school and the infants' playground was taken over by the London Fire Brigade as a sub-station and the first floor and the junior-mixed playground remained as the school for both infants and junior mixed and later for all children up to the age of 14.  My memory as to the exact sequence of events is a bit hazy and I think that when the fire brigade took over the school, initially none of it was left to the school.  In any event, those of us who had not been evacuated had, for a time, to attend private houses for our education. 

I seem to remember that this was only in the mornings and was not every day of the week but I did get one-to-one tuition while it lasted. I was at the house of the Moy family at No 9 Park Lane.  I loved this as I had a very nice teacher, Miss Holmes, the Moy family were very nice and, above all, they had an Old English sheepdog called Gert and a mongrel called Molly who was also very friendly. I don’t know how long this arrangement lasted but I know that after a short time we all went back to the school. 

Mrs Staite, the headmistress of the infants, was put in charge of what was, in effect, one school covering infants and junior mixed as well as those who would normally have gone on to secondary schools.  That is, they covered children from 5 to 14.  Some of the teachers had either not been evacuated or had returned to cope with the children who were in the same position. Other things were happening which were quite exciting for us children.  Trenches were dug in Charlton Park and the old cricket pavilion was fortified with sandbags and a cornfield appeared in Hornfair Park.  RAF and WAAF personnel appeared in Charlton and Maryon Wilson Parks and established barrage balloon sites.  The personnel were accommodated in nearby houses which had, presumably been commandeered for the purpose. 

The site consisted of an open area with a winch truck, which had a sort of wire-mesh cage on the back and the balloon itself with a store of hydrogen cylinders.  As a child, I was fascinated by the balloons and loved watching them rise into the air on their cables.  I always felt that they were friendly-looking things.  Later in the war, we got to know some of the WAAFs and they gave us carrots, which were grown on the site with other vegetables, as well as apples. On windless days, the fins of the balloons drooped forlornly at their sides as there was no breeze to inflate them but they always seemed to inflate if they reached a sufficient height.  The balloons were occasionally responsible for a variety of childish excitements, I remember on one occasion, a balloon which had broken loose from its cable and bounced around the back gardens on the estate before it was recaptured by the RAF and returned whence it came. 

I also saw, on a couple of occasions, balloons descending to earth in flames.  Opinions differed as to whether they had been struck by lightning or shot down by German planes.  I never did find out which it was. Another change in our lives was the carrying of gas-masks.  These were issued either very early in the war or soon after the declaration of war.  I was very pleased because I was able to have an ordinary gas-mask rather than the Mickey Mouse one.  These were specially designed for children under five, the idea being that they would not find them so frightening but I remember one of Mrs Brown's children screaming its head off at the sight of this brightly-coloured monstrosity!  There were also special baby 'Masks' which were, in effect, a receptacle in which the baby was placed whilst the mother provided it with an air supply by operating a built-in bellows.  This had a tendency to upset both the mother and the baby. 

We had to carry our gas-masks wherever we went and, if we forgot to take them to school, we were sent home to fetch them.  I often wondered what would have happened if there had been a gas attack while we were fetching the gas-mask but I suppose there was no alternative.  The masks were kept in a cardboard box with a string attached but most parents either bought purpose-made cases that soon appeared or, as my mother did, made a cloth carrying-case.  Periodically, we had to test our gas-masks in class and we enjoyed this as you could cause them to make a delicious farting noise, which all the small boys found hilarious.

The blackout also impinged on our lives.  At blackout time each night, you were duty-bound to ensure that no chink of light escaped to guide the enemy bombers to their target.  Rumour had it that an enemy pilot could see the glow of a single cigarette from his plane.  Then, at five years old, I believed it but logic now tells me that the Thames was a far better guide to the whereabouts of London than a bloke having a quick spit and a drag in the open air was.  Anyway, why did they use those fantastically bright flares if all they needed was a glowing fag? If any light did escape you were liable to hear the cry of 'Put that bloody light out!' from the local air-raid warden.  This was regarded with some amusement by most people but could have had serious consequences for any persistent offender who was taken to court. 

Another effect of the blackout was that because everything was pitch black after dark, kerbstones were painted white and white bands were painted round lamp-posts and the trunks of trees in the streets. My Dad made shutters for our front room, consisting of a wooden frame with tarpaulin stretched over it.  This was secured on the outside of the window with a simple snib and saved the sort of bother which you always had in trying to ensure that any blackout curtains were not letting any light seep out. 

During the War Chapter 2