DRAYTON – Because I was born in the fall of 1939, I have some memories of living in Northeast London in the UK during the end of the second World War.
Even now, eighty years later, sometimes the sound of an emergency vehicle siren brings back the memory of my family rushing to get into the shelter to await the all clear signal.
There would be times when we would hear a bomb fall, but most times as we waited, there was nothing; only an eerie silence.
At night we slept in the shelter, which, in our case, was a large steel structure inside the house. For me this was normal as I had never slept in anything else, but for my parents it must have seemed like a cage.
Later, during the war years, things changed as daytime rockets were replacing nighttime bombers.
Initially, we were threatened by the V1 rocket , which you could hear coming as it had a noisy staccato engine. It was common knowledge that if you heard the engine stop, you were safe.
This was because when the engine stopped, the rocket glided down to earth some distance away.
However, it would hit the ground and explode with no warning for the people close by.
Later, the V2 came on the scene. There was no warning of this missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, making it extremely dangerous.
I was enrolled in Infant School in September 1944.
My teacher was Miss Cheesewright, who I instantly fell in love with.
From time to time we would hear a warning air raid siren and immediately, whatever the class was doing, we had to sit under our desks until the all clear siren was heard. For us young boys, this was great fun and an opportunity to play games.
Another wartime event occured while I was out shopping with my mother.
I probably didn’t want to go, but mothers rule. Mom wanted to go into Woolworths for something but didn’t want me in the store where I could be a nuisance with so much interesting stuff on display.
So I stood outside and waited. As I stood there, a huge explosion shook the ground and the whole area. A V1 rocket had landed and exploded nearby.
Not ten feet away from me, the plate glass window of Williams Brothers Grocery Store fell out and smashed on the pavement.
My mother rushed out to find me unharmed and holding a piece of glass.
This article was written by Dave Short, and originally appeared in the Senior’s Centre for Excellence’s Heart and Soul newsletter.
