War Memories

Wartime Memories

On Friday 1 st September 1939 I arrived at Clapham Central School in South London not with a school satchel but a suitcase. As a young teenager my parents knew that if I didn't arrive home from school that afternoon I would have become an evacuee. We assembled in the school playground and then walked across Clapham Common about two miles to a school near to Clapham Junction Station for refreshments. We then boarded a Southern Electric train, destination unknown.

The train eventually stopped at Bracknell where we alighted to be taken by buses to a Berkshire village called Winkfield. At the local British Legion Hall we were met by a host of ladies who chose us, mostly in pairs, to be taken to their homes. On Sunday 3rd September we heard Mr. Chamberlain announce on the wireless that we were now at war with Germany. My evacuation memories are good.

Over the next 18 months I stayed with two families who in fact became lifelong good friends and it was fun living in the countryside. I learned a lot including swearing, which I wasn't allowed to do at home. As there was no bombing in London until September 1940, we were allowed to go home for weekends once a month and for Christmas. We came back with our bikes. All the teachers had bikes and I went with a group to the University Boat Race at Henley. We set up a school in the Legion Hall and had full - time lessons. The best place to cycle was to the Copper Horse in Windsor Great Park.

I was at home for Christmas 1940 when on 29th December a huge fire bomb and high explosive raid took place on the City of London. We sheltered at home under the stairs, which was the safest place should the house collapse. On the following day I rode around the bombed City on my bicycle - a ride I have never forgotten. The firewatchers and a ring of fire hoses had saved St Paul's Cathedral. My parents had an Anderson Shelter in the garden in which they slept for one night only - as it became damp and smelly. My father went to bed on the ground floor during the raids. He had to get to work at Stratford, East London each day and needed his sleep.

I returned home from evacuation at Easter 1941. After May there was a lull in air raids on London for two years or more. I attended an Emergency Secondary School in Brixton and for the first time in my school life we had girls as well as boys, which was fun. One of my fellow pupils was Roger Moore - yes, who later became the famous actor. In 1944 things started hotting up and by June we had the VI Flying Bomb raids. When the engine stopped, the plane dived to earth and exploded.

I was a student at a Teachers Training College in Shoreditch. We just carried on as everyone did. I was cycling to college one day and dived into the gutter when an engine stopped. After hearing the explosion I just got up and continued the ride. I went one Saturday evening to a College dance. Returning home by Tube to Clapham South station, I had to pick my way over the sleeping bodies along the platform which was used as an air raid shelter. The stench was awful. It was a relief to breathe the fresh air outside – and risk the bombs.

As a member of the Scout Association I joined a team of stretcher bearers at the South London Hospital and during the Flying Bomb raids spent most nights there. We slept in the basement. When roused, our job was to carry casualties from the ambulances and up to the wards and the operating theatre. Following the Flying Bombs we had the V2 Rockets which just dropped without warning. The one on Clapham Common did considerable damage to the Parish Church, where William Wilberforce and a group who worked to abolish slavery had once worshipped.

However, we lived full lives in London in spite of the bombing and were even cheered when we heard the anti aircraft guns firing from Clapham Common. A part of the Common was given over to the "Dig For Victory" campaign and my father had an allotment where he enjoyed working. Food was rationed and our family gave up having sugar in tea so that it could be used for homemade jam. During a summer holiday I worked on a farm near Dorking in Surrey at harvest time. We had a horse drawn cart and a threshing machine driven by a steam traction engine.

As the War ended I finished my College Course and qualified as a teacher. A group of us with a banner did the "College Yell" a sort of dance in Trafalgar Square. On VE night the 8th May 1945, I joined the huge throng in Piccadilly Circus and outside Buckingham Palace. A few months later I was "called up" for National Service in the Army and later joined the Royal Army Educational Corps as an officer.

We had been lucky at home. There was much damage to housing in London but all we suffered was a collapsed ceiling and several broken windows. When it all ended it was quite boring at first because I missed the fun of the nightly chat with the Scouts and of course the nurses - at the South London Hospital. Finally I have always remembered this quotation from Psalm 91.

"Thou shalt not be afraid of any terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day."

ERIC NEWELL
74 Maycross Avenue, Morden, Surrey. SM4 4DA 020 8542 1371

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