As we are all in the same boat with this lock down I thought I would write my experience as a very young person living in fear of not knowing what the outcome would be. Every story has a touch of humour!
I was four years old when WW2 started – it was a silent time for almost a year and then because of a freak accident or fate. Call it what you like when a German bomber dropped its bomb load on London by mistake. This mistake was the start of the German bombardment of England for the next five years!
1940/41 was a terrifying time to be alive as each day and night brought new stresses because of the constant bombardment from enemy planes on the countryside.
I lived in a cul-de-sac, and at the bottom end. It always reminded him of a giant thermometer, a long road with a circular bit at the bottom. He and his neighbours’ boys and girls made up their own game. It wasn’t exactly football as they had sticks and a tennis ball. I was the goalkeeper for both sides and many an outstanding save I made because the goal area was the hedge of my garden, quite a bit wider than a normal goal. Saving goals didn’t come without problems as I always launched myself and with arms outstretched I would tip the ball over or out and away and then would land heavily on the pavement. Many games and bruises would become a part of my life.
My mum and dad decided well before the war years that they would keep chickens and it was one of my tasks every Sunday morning to clean out the hen house, not a job I particularly liked doing but it did earn me pocket money. My other tasks were looking after the vegetable garden and helping with housework and washing up after every meal time. I was always dusting furniture because every time bombs dropped in our area dust and dirt travelled through the air and seeped through the windows. My mum had one of those new fangled inventions that supposed to pick up dust and dirt and many times I had to get on his hands and knees with a dustpan and stiff bristled brush to clean the stair carpet.
I was picked to play football and was positioned as goal keeper and I stopped a penalty and it proven that because I had not held the ball safely, the force of the ball broke a few fingers and I was carted off to hospital. After six weeks it was a great relief when the splints were removed from my fingers.
My auntie who lived next door but one, opened her curtains in her lounge one morning and saw fins sticking out of the ground about two feet away from her metal coal-bunker which was situated just outside the French windows. She called in at our house and said ‘Can I borrow Gregory for a moment – ‘I need moral support.’ Mum said ‘Okay!’ But she never asked why, perhaps she should have. Auntie dragged me over to her house and into the lounge we went and she pointed to the bomb sticking out of the ground. She turned to Gregory and said ‘What shall I do?’ ‘Leave it alone.’ Gregory said. ‘I can’t do that,’ said auntie ‘It might explode and blow a hole in the side of the house.’ I knew in my heart that auntie was going to do something really drastic. She opened the French windows and grabbing me by the hand she walked to where the bomb was and pulled it out of the ground and walked to her vegetable garden and threw the bomb into it. The bomb hit a stone and both auntie and I stood petrified, not being able to move one inch and for several minutes we stood staring at it, then very slowly we walked away back to the house. Auntie made us both a very strong cup of tea. Gregory said ‘I shan’t bother telling mum what happened, I’ll think of something else.’ Later that day soldiers came and took away the bomb.
Another episode was when the Government decided that people living in the South East, namely Kent should be evacuated out of the danger zone what with so many bombs dropping and mum, auntie and I were sent to Yorkshire. I only had vague recollections of this trip to the Yorkshire Dales and the ‘fun’ travelling by coach to school, the route taking us over the many humped-backed bridges, so going to school and back was like riding the ‘Big Dipper.’ Then when the war caught up with the Yorkshire Dales, we all came back to Kent, which still was under siege every day and night. Gregory remembered the farce acted out by his mum and auntie on the underground on the way back to Kent. We had a large pram it had our suit cases in it as it seemed to be easier way of transporting our personal belongings, not wanting to carry heavy baggage. Auntie thought mum had put the brake on the pram and vice versa and the pram started to roll away down a slope and straight into a waiting underground train, the doors closed and off it went. Mum went up to the station master and said what had happened and he told her that that train was a loop train and would be back in an hour and it was, so we collected our pram with everything we owned on our journey back to Kent still complete. I said to mum ‘Good job there was a train in the station at the moment the pram moved.’
The Government at that time were asking people of all ages to help with the war effort by making ammunition and Gregory’s mum went to Woolwich to work. I was sent packing to live with another Auntie in Sidcup for a while. My mum had an awful experience one day when in her lunch break she was coming out of Woolworths when a lonely Messerschmitt strafed the side of the doorway she was emerging from, but she retreated very quickly as bullets came through the glass doors.