How Britain Kept Calm and Carried On (4 page)

In the early days of the London Blitz we were living in Stratford, E15. Prior to going to the Anderson shelter it was our practice to cut sandwiches and make flasks of tea
because we knew that Jerry would regularly arrive shortly before 6 p.m. This particular night the East End was his target and it was very hectic. He was giving us a good going over.

My wife and I, with our baby son, were quite comfortable inside the shelter, and around about 1 a.m. we decided to have a cup of tea. After about half an hour, I had a feeling that I would have
to run the gauntlet to the outside loo, but owing to the shrapnel from the anti-aircraft guns I decided to wait until a lull occurred. But eventually it became a question – excuse my French
– of shit or bust.

Suddenly, miraculously, a lull occurred and I said: ‘Now’s my chance!’ I dashed from the shelter and reached the toilet safely enough. I proceeded to drop my trousers, but just
as my bottom touched the toilet seat, a mobile 3.5 ack-ack gun went off about fifty yards from the house. My head hit the toilet ceiling and I simply ran and dived headlong back into the shelter,
causing quite a commotion because I landed on the tea table and on my wife. My trousers were still around my ankles and to this day I don’t know whether I accomplished what I’d set out
to do.

J. Edmonds, London

I’m hard of hearing, so the sirens and the bombs didn’t unduly worry me, as very often I didn’t hear them. One night, there was a particularly bad raid over
London and many buildings were destroyed, some not far from my home. In the morning my neighbour came in for coffee and exclaimed: ‘What do you think of last night’s terrible
raid?’

‘Oh,’ I replied, ‘I slept all night, didn’t hear a thing.’

‘Well,’ she said, in such a jealous way, ‘you’re just lucky that you’re deaf!’

Cecilia Morgan, Golders Green, London

It was during the Blitz on London in 1940 and a stick of bombs had fallen in Pembridge Crescent, Notting Hill Gate, and failed to go off – UXBs we called them.

It was thought that one had penetrated the sewer (a brick one about thirty feet deep) and the bomb disposal sergeant said that he would remove it. I asked him how he would get it out and he said
he would go into the sewer, tie a rope to the bomb and pull it out. So I gave him a safety lamp to use, and then he said, ‘Oh, by the way, are there any rats down there?’

And when I said, ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Well, I’m not going down there, then. We’ll dig for it instead.’ And he made his men dig a hole thirty feet deep and got the
bomb like that. He was prepared to face an unexploded bomb – but not a rat!

G. A. Shapland, Lancing, Surrey

As a young woman during the Second World War, I lived with my crippled mother and an aged aunt in a ground-floor flat in a large block, surrounded by similar blocks of flats and
a few houses.

During an air raid, we would sit at the end of an inner corridor to be safe from splintered glass, as windows always blew inwards with a blast. On one occasion there was a direct hit on the
block next door, and its flying masonry descended on our own block, causing it to shiver and shake for what seemed like an eternity. Finally it decided to stand firm. Terrified, we clung to each
other in the dark on the floor where the blast had hurled us. The flats had coal fires and separate anthracite boilers, and the smell of soot was stifling. All doors but one were off their hinges
and, judging by the noise, every window was out.

Suddenly a flickering light appeared where our front door had once stood; a dark figure, holding aloft a lighted candle in one hand, made its way unsteadily towards us. It was the lady from next
door, simply covered with soot, her red-rimmed blue eyes shining out of her black face. In her other hand she held an almost spotless pair of white corsets.

‘Isn’t it disgusting?’ she said. ‘New today and now they’ve got a bit of soot on them!’ She was very shocked and had no idea that she looked like a black
minstrel. Very soon her equally sooty husband, who bore a bottle of Chartreuse and a mug, joined her. And we all shared a loving cup by candlelight.

Suddenly two more excited figures entered the corridor. One was the lovely daughter of our neighbours, barefooted, dark hair streaming over her white nightdress; the other was her fiancé.
The house nearby where they lodged had been razed to the ground and they were the sole survivors. You can imagine the emotional impact on the girl’s parents. There was also a young
schoolmaster we knew. There seemed to be safety in numbers.

By the time I had brewed some tea during a lull in the bombing, the ARP arrived to ask how many refugees I had and if I could cope. I could, and bedded everyone down in the corridor with
blankets and pillows.

Just as we were dozing off, there were loud screams from the lavatory on the corridor and the sound of fists pounding on the door. The poor girl in the nightdress had gone in there and the door,
being the only one left on its hinges, was out of true. The lock had jammed and refused to yield to pressure. Eventually the ARP had to return with a pickaxe to free her – not an easy task
without injuring her.

Twenty-two years later, I met this girl again in Brighton. She’d grown into a poised and elegant young matron and invited me to her charming home where we laughed about the caricature
element in that horrific night of long ago.

Mrs C. Tennant, London

Although I worked as an electrical and magnetic instrument maker, in the evenings I played in a band. At the height of the Blitz, we were playing at a function in Altrincham,
in a large hall that doubled up as the local ARP headquarters.

On this particular evening, there was a big raid and many of the dancers left, either to go on ARP duty or just to get home to their loved ones.

Suddenly there was a huge explosion, the building rocked around the clock, and the doors on all the emergency exits were blown open. I was ready to run off stage when I saw the pianist still
tinkling away, so I stayed too, even though there was now nobody dancing.

Eventually the all-clear sounded and we had time to take stock. The first thing I noticed was a large switchboard for the lighting and telephone. Someone had pinned a notice to it: ‘If the
alarm bell goes once, raiders approaching; if the alarm bell goes twice, raiders in the vicinity; if the alarm bell goes three times – the bloody building has been hit.’

Anyway, by now the pianist had joined me. I said: ‘That was a brave thing to do, carrying on like that.’

‘Carrying on?’ he said. ‘I couldn’t stand up for fright.’

Frank Budgeon, Manchester

We lived in a three-storey house in Keyham, close to HM Dockyard. One night there was a particularly bad raid and all of us except my elderly grandmother – she was in her
eighties – were huddled under the staircase. Grandma sat defiantly in her chair against the passageway in a sort of alcove.

We all sat there, listening to the awful sound of the heavy bombs, breaking glass, and incendiaries coming down like falling rain. Grandma seemed oblivious to all this, but kept complaining:
‘There’s an awful draught round my back and legs.’