The Second World War had started. Was I going to get hurt or killed? I was eight years old. What did it all mean? Some weeks after the declaration of war things started to happen. A horse drawing a cart pilled high with corrugated steel sheets, stopped outside the house and a man knocked at our front door to ask “How many people live here�? Mum said “Ten�?

The man said with that many, we would have to have an Andersen shelter to be dug into the garden. He would leave enough parts. He and his mate brought in ten curved side panels and eight flat ones for the ends.

There were channels that were to be used for the foundations to stand the corrugated iron sheets upright, otherwise the sheets would sink into the clay with the weight, an iron bar to fix the front and back, and lots of nuts and bolts with diamond shaped washers bent to fit the shape of the corrugation.

Some days later two men came to dig the hole for the shelter to be put into. They dug down three feet, and fixed the shelter together in the hole, stuffed old newspapers into the gaps that were left as the ends of the sheets did not fit into the corrugations, then piled all the earth from the hole over the top of the shelter. When the men had gone we looked at the shelter, we could not see any of it from the outside only a big hump at the bottom of the garden. We got inside. We had to get in backwards and drop down feet first into the darkness inside. It smelt earthy and some of the soil was falling in past the old newspapers that did not fill the gaps fully.

Later two men came to put a cement floor inside, but left a little hole to bale out any water if it got in. Water did get in , lots of it, down through the newspaper with brown clay streaking the end, and water came through the bolt holes in the roof. Some wooden bunk beds came, just a wooden frame with rigid wires nailed across to sleep on.

Mum received a letter to say we must all go to the Air Raid Precaution Post to get gas masks, Mum, Dad, My brothers and sisters all got the same, a black one with just one window in it, and a cardboard box to keep it in, with a string to hang it over your shoulder. We were told to take it everywhere with us.

I had a brown one with two windows like glasses, it had a kind of flat rubber nose sticking out with two holes in it. I found that if I was wearing it and wet the two holes and blew, it made a nice rude noise.

The baby twins were next. The lady had a thing like a diver’s helmet that was made of red rubber and canvas. It was laid on its back and baby was put in head first, it came down to the baby’s hips, the arms were inside, but the legs were outside. Laces were pulled tight around the waist then tied to make it airtight. On the outside was a pump about three inches wide. This must be pumped all the time baby was inside. Mum said she wanted two. The lady showed all of us how to use the pump and said that one of us must always be there to help Mum with the babies.

The baby in the gas mask was screaming, the large window in the gas mask had misted up and we could not see baby, Mum started crying and got the baby out. The lady said that if we did have to use them, she would have to make baby stay inside, we must wear them for a few minutes a day until we got used to them. When we got home Mum said she did not like them!

About a month later we heard a noise out the front. We went out to find men with big hammers smashing our cast iron railings. They had been five feet high with a big gate. All the posts had a point on them. The brickwork was broken, and was left like that and was never repaired. They took away the railings for the war effort.

The trams that ran past our home had curtain netting glued to the inside of the windows , so that if they were blasted the glass would not cut the passengers, but as time went by the smokers made the glass so dirty that you could not see out. A wet finger could just about clean a small hole between the strands of netting to peep through. There were no street lights, and in the fog the only thing you could see were the three white bands that were painted on the trees and lamp posts. The cars and other vehicles had shades put over their headlights, something like a tin can with a slit, just a tiny light showed.

No light was allowed to show from the houses. Thick curtains had to be closely drawn. If a light did show, someone would shout “Put that light out!�?

Dad had joined the A.R.P. service as an Air Raid Warden. He had a white tin hat, a dark blue uniform and another different gas mask, a whistle and a torch. Dad worked at Peak Frean’s biscuit factory doing maintenance to the buildings by day, then in the evenings he had to go to the A.R.P.post to do duty. Sometimes he was away all night.

Part of his job was to go round the public shelters. These were brick built in the streets and underground ones in the park. He had to count how many people were in each, chalk it on the blackboard in the shelter, and enter it into his note book to record back at the A.R.P. post.

Incendiary bombs were dropped. He would have to dislodge them from roofs with long poles. Once they fell to the ground they could be put out with sand or with a stirrup pump, with one foot on the pump, keeping the suction part in a bucket of water, using one hand to pump and the other to direct the hose pipe.

The water would make the incendiary bomb throw out white hot bits of phosphorous! Dad told us of the damage that had happened that night and of the people who had been injured, and how he had to dig people out of their bombed homes.

We liked to listen to the wireless , when Dad fixed it up.

We heard this man say, “This is Germany calling. We are going to bomb London tonight�?

His name was Lord Haw Haw. Dad said he was a traitor, as he was English. In fact his real name was William Joyce and he had lived just across the park from where we were living. I don’t know what I thought I was going to do, but one day several of us boys went to Alison Grove near Dulwich Park Pond and looked at the house where he had lived. We heard a piano being played and we shouted abuse and ran away. A lady came to the door, it could have been Eileen Joyce, his sister, the well known pianist, but we didn’t wait to find out.

Dad always went to work on his little Coventry Eagle motor bike. He had a small ration of petrol coupons as he had to get to his wardens duties. In the morning he would get his motor bike out of the shed at the side of the house, put a wooden ramp from the step to the pavement, run his bike down, then put the ramp back in the front garden. Then he would sit astride the bike and shake it from side to side. He said this mixed the petrol and oil in the tank.. He then started the engine. He would adjust his overcoat, put on his goggles and pull on his gauntlets. Twenty minutes to eight, off he went to Bermondsey to arrive in time to change into his white overalls ready for work at eight o'clock.

I remark on his preciseness as one evening he did not return at his usual time of five twenty five. It was very foggy and there had been an air raid. At half past six there was a knock at the door, Dad stood there, soaking wet, covered in clay, coat torn, no cap and cut a head. We thought that he had been blown up, but he told us what had happened. As he rode home he turned a corner in the fog. A rope had been strung across the road as a bomb had been dropped making the road impassable. The rope had caught him under the chin and he fell off. The motor bike carried on into the bomb crater, so my elder brothers went back with him to pull it out of the hole, then, half carry it back home, they all worked on it, to repair it for the next day, after lots of straightening of the metal, and adjustments, it was thought to be usable on the following day.

They all came indoors and washed the oil and muck off. Mum bathed Dads head, and repaired his torn trousers and coat, the clay had dried and could be brushed off, he had not been able to find his cap.

Dad started his tea but remembered he had to go to the A.R.P. post for that nights fire watch at the Dulwich Library, he was worried that he would be late.

By Norman Long. Aged 8

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