Bernard during WW2

My name is Bernard Clarke and I am seventy six years old. My grandchildren call me the Fossil.

This is the story of the experience of a boy who was eleven years old during world war two, from the years of 1939 to 1945 who lived in London.

During 1939 I worked for greengrocer name Simpson they had two shops and they also traded around the streets with a horse and card selling vegetables. They had one in Fulham and also in Barnes. My job was to help load up the cart and harness the horse ready to hitch up to the cart. My task was to knock on customers doors and when we served the lady I would carry her bas to the door sometime. I would get a tip and in most cases I would get about sixpence. I was paid the sum of two and sixpence and all the vegetables my mother wanted. We worked all day from seven in the morning until six thirty at night.

On Sundays I went down Tasso Road where the stables were to help to muck out and hose down and clear all the manure and laid fresh straw and feed the three horses that they had. I also brushed them down and this is what I enjoyed the most — I loved working with horses as they are beautiful animals to work with.

We had bad news today - when we found out that we are at war with Germany on the third of September at 11 a.m. in 1939. We were issued with ration books, identity cards and also gas masks. Towards the end of 1939 Simpson decided to sell the business to an old boy named Tom Balham who had a stable in the same yard. So I worked for him to show him the round in Fulham. We also sold coal on Mondays — I did this when I was off from the school holidays. I worked for him up to the time the bombing started towards the end of August 1040. Tim decided to pack up working because the bombing became dangerous — he was over 70 years old.

I lived in Fulham SW6 — when the bombing started my schooling education was disrupted because we only had half a day at four different schools and when the siren went off we would go down the shelter and wait for the all clear to go. This lasted till I left school at the age of fourteen years.

During 1940 the bombs dropped on the Lyons factory which was just the next turning to us and it was on fire and so hot that we could feel the heat. It was completely burnt out as it was full of cardboard boxes.

A few streets away from us they dropped a land mine by parachute in Norman Road. This wiped out five streets and killed a lot of people. The story goes that a home guard fired his rifle and this is the reason why it did so much damage as it exploded in the air.

One Sunday evening (September 7th) at about seven thirty my mum and dad and also two sisters and me were sitting round the fire listening to the wireless. I saw the kitchen window come in — it was caused by a bomb in the back yard. We made an attempt to get out but we could not open the door because of brick rubble. Mrs. Weller who lived upstairs managed to clear the rubble from the door so we were able to get out of the house. We were told by an air raid warden to go to the air raid shelter so we stayed there the night. In the morning we heard that eight people had died last night. Mr. Harris was missing and they found him in the bomb crater with a broken neck. We tried to get back into the house but the police and air raid warden said the house was not safe to go back into as the building is split in two. My aunt Ethel who lived round the corner took us in to stay with her. We stayed with her for four days then the council gave us our flat in Fulham Court. We stayed there for six months. We were glad to get out of there as it was very noisy as our flat was next to the stairs.

My mother kept me away from school for about three weeks then I got caught by a truant officer so I went back to school, on my fist day at school the teacher made me stand in front of the class to set an example of what you get for playing truant so he gave me six strokes of the cane — the teachers were very hard on us.

We finally moved into a house at 29 Parkville Road in 1942. I left school and started looking for a job. I had to go into the local labour exchange and they asked me what I like to do. I said I liked to work on cars and I got a job in a garage working for West London School of Motoring. I learned all about engines and on every Wednesday I went to school to learn all about engines and all types of cars. The knowledge I got helped me when I had motorcycles and cards and I was able to do my own repairs. The work I done was cleaning car chassis and we did our bit for the war effort. We were turning out brass plugs which were used as parts for aircraft and also we also made handles which operate flaps on aircraft. This is where I learnt to use a lathe and milling machine.

After working there for 13 months I got the sack and they paid me two weeks money so they didn’t have to give me a weeks notice. I was worried about how I was going to tell my mum and dad but I had no cause to worry. On the Monday morning I found another job working in a factory for a company called Walters which manufactured radio sets.

We made radio sets for the army — mainly for the Royal Signals — these were transmitters and receiving sets. I learnt a lot of skills on power press machines and also acetylene and spot welding which came in useful later in life. I got friendly with two chaps that worked in the same department. I found they had push bikes so I decide to get a bike. My father helped me as he lent me the money to buy a second hand bike for thirty shillings. On weekends we did a few trip s to Box hill near Dorking. We had another chap who came from Dover, he was lodging in Fulham and he suggested a week camping along the south coast on our bikes he wanted us to finish at Dover so he could see his mother and also the damage done by shelling which came from France. The places we went to were Ramsgate, then Margate and also Folkstone and Dover. I came home from work and my mother had a letter in her hand from the ministry of works. The letter was for my father as he had been put on direct labour. He was sent to a place in Wiltshire called Corsham and was away for five months. He could not tell us what he was doing there at the time but after the war ended he told us they were building underground stores for the navy.

I worked for this company for about two years ending in 1944 while we still had the bombing. The East End of London had the worst f the bombing because of the ship yards. The Germans developed a new weapon — this was called a V1 and was a flying bomb with a pulse jet engine. It flew until the engine stopped and then it dived to earth and exploded and knocked out two houses. We got used to them — when we heard the engine stop we looked to see where it was going and then waited for the explosion hoping we were not near the blast. The Germans modified the V1 — when the engine stopped instead of it diving to earth it did a circle instead and this meant if did more damage as it went into houses at an angle.

I got to know about air training corps — they were stationed at the Empress Hall near Earls Court so I joined in 1944. We did the same training as the RAF which included square bashing and aircraft recognition. The best time was when we went to an airfield for three weeks although I could not tell you where it was. We slept in tents, eight to a ten and we did guard duties. We were taken down the airfield and went in a hanger where there were spitfires and mosquitos. The got us working on the spitfire taking the paint off, the reason for this was to increase air speed to catch the V1 rocket. We were working on the spitfire one day when all of the air crew ran out of the hanger on to the airfield. We all followed and what we say was that a mosquito had done a belly landing on a grass field. We saw the pilot get out of the cockpit and when we asked what happened he told us he attached a V1 rocket and it exploded as he turned away. It had blown away his undercarriage and he had no landing gear left — the pilot was badly shaken up.

Another time, I and two other chaps were working in a hanger when a sergeant came in and told us to go to the office. When we got there he asked us if we would like to go up in an aircraft for a flight and we jumped at the idea. He took us out onto the airfield and we were handed a parachute each and he told us that if we pulled the rip cord then we would have to pay two shillings and sixpence. We got to the aircraft and it turned out to be an air speed oxford which is a twin engine low wing aircraft. It was a fantastic flight but it never occurred to us that we could have been shot down. I enjoyed every minute of the three weeks that I spent there — I can’t remember when the ATC finished but I think it was damaged by the bombing.

On weekends we used to go to Battersea Park to hire a rowing boat. On one particular Sunday we had an air raid warning and at the side of the lake we saw a bank of rockets firing at a German aircraft and a spitfire and hurricane having a dog fight. The Germans had two choices — to face flax from guns or fighters. So we decided to get out of the shrapnel that was dropping all round us and we rower to the island for safety until the raid was over.

I left the factory where I was working and got a job with a builder by the name of Reno and we worked on bomb damage houses. The Germans developed a new weapon called the V2 rocket — we did not know when these were coming as we did not get any waning — all we got was one big explosion — these killed a lot of people and it was very frightening.

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