us again. Dad was still away, but hardly very far away: in Clapham.
Victory was in sight. But unknown to us there was a new and even deadlier threat. We came back to what was the most terrifying ordeal of all, the destruction caused by the pilotless planes; first the V1 flying bombs, then the deadly V2 rockets launched on London from mobile trailers.
The flying bombs were like a dark shadow, chugging, rattling and droning across the sky, with their 1,000 pounds of explosive which always seemed to be released at a point just above your head. We would sense that, because the noise would suddenly cut out, and we never knew if they’d glide onwards or fall straight down. During the cold, miserable winter of 1944 we got to know these new weapons: all at once, without any warning, there would just be this eerie silence. They were fired straight into sub-orbital space and came down so fast that if we heard them we had been lucky and had escaped.
One day this happened to us. ‘Face down on the floor everyone!’ shouted the white-coated fishmonger. I was round at Poplars Road. Raymond and I had been sent out to buy fish for Kitty, our cat.
There was a flash and then a huge explosion as the rocket hit the Baker’s Arms bus shelter about 150 yards away. Everyone threw themselves on the floor of the shop. Buildings were blown up or simply collapsed. Debris flew everywhere. Bodies, blood and severed limbs were scattered across the street; ambulances screamed and sirens wailed as fire engines and rescue squads arrived.
Raymond and I had flattened ourselves on the fishmonger’s floor. We’d had a very lucky escape. There was dust and debris everywhere. A woman came up to where we lay flat on our bellies, quivering with terror.
‘Where do you live?’ she asked. ‘Do you live locally?’
This kind woman then took each of us by the hand and brought us back to Auntie’s place in Poplars Road. Here a couple of front windows had been blown out and we found Hilda in a petrified state, sitting on top of the kitchen table. She was perched there as if there was a swirling flood rising around her.
‘You must take shelter under the table,’ she’d been told before the air-raid warning and the rocket struck. Definitely the safest place was to shelter under it.
‘But I can’t, no I can’t!’ she shrieked. ‘There’s a mouse there!’
The Pathé or Movietone newsreels at the cinema where we viewed the horrifying footage of these new terror weapons were miles away from the reality of their destruction. The rockets had a double demoralising effect on a tired and war-weary East London, where destruction had been diabolical. Over 6,000 people died, many in our area, and tens of thousands more were wounded – a huge toll. My evacuation to Bletchley had then proved to be effective because my worst moment of the war was back at home on my return.
Even so, these years, when so many suffered death, destruction and misery, were for me a happy and secure time when only at rare moments was my sense of good fortune disrupted or broken. We were fighting the Germans, but that was all I knew.
I didn’t see much of Dad, so I was hardly aware of him, but in the laundry he sent home to Mum he would include sheets of Bakelite (which he used in his war work in the army to wrap up the imitation planes and soldiers) for me to play with. Aside from the separations, there was such a great spirit with everybody pulling together, and we kids had a great time.
Later when I was a bit older on my return to Leytonstone in late 1944 I remember rushing down the steps in daylight to the shelter, but without Dad. He had gone away and was now a stranger, a shadowy figure who occasionally visited on leave. He played very little part in my life in those early infant years.
Yet even without having my dad there to look after me I was never worried, never scared, and never had any decision to make: I was supremely well cared for by everyone. I never felt lonely and on my own.
I accepted life, I accepted what I was doing, the world around me, and what was happening to me without ever questioning it.
The war in Europe was over. I had seen virtually nothing of Dad now since 1941 and was excited at the thought of his homecoming.
On Victory in Europe (VE) Day in May 1945 we held a fancy-dress party in Poplars Road. Everyone carried out chairs and tables into the middle of the road and covered the tables in tablecloths of all different shapes and colours.
With basic foodstuffs rationed, we had been fed on spam – plentiful tinned spam – and cheese-and-potato pie was my favourite, which Hilda used to bake. Vegetables were even scarcer than fresh meat, but I was too young to know what they were, so I hardly missed them. Powdered milk and powdered eggs were part of the staple diet, and there was hardly any fruit to eat. Everyone has their first banana story. I had no idea what to do with the first banana I held in my hand, how to peel it and get at the inside, but it was exotic – extraordinary.
Foods which had been scarce were brought out of hiding and piled high: sausages, eggs, cakes, cold chicken, mince pies, cup cakes. Fizzy drinks, too: ginger beer, lemonade, Dandelion and Burdock, and the new import, Coca-Cola.
There were races and stalls, as well as the sumptuous spread, and everyone was merry, danced and sang and had the time of their life. I wore a costume made by Mum out of wartime ration cards and books, all of which she had carefully sewn together. I had a painted sign pinned to the front of my costume – ‘Mother’s Worries’ – and with this I won first prize. They even took a professional photograph of me wearing it as ‘Wartime Ration Boy’.
When Mum took part in the egg and spoon race, she fell over just as she was winning and nearly broke her nose. She was covered in blood and I was screaming. I was terrified by what had happened and suddenly had a terrible premonition and fear that she would die.
I was too young, not yet seven, to take in the speeches on the radio, the thanksgiving service, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, voicing his relief and exultation, and everyone paying their tribute to the King as the Head of our Great Family. All this was going on, yet I missed my chance to listen to the Archbishop of Canterbury who spoke in such a dignified and unselfconscious manner, without an inkling that one day I would be playing his predecessor, Cosmo Lang, who was something of a villain, in The King’s Speech.
When we were back home fireworks lit up the sky, which made me for a moment start up with fear, as not long before flashes and explosions had told a different story.
Uncle Henry could pick up any tune on the piano and play it. Just as victory was declared and we were celebrating at home, he got very drunk. He was the one who had cooked for victory all through the war, and been in Iceland, but now he was very inebriated and started hammering out something on the piano. Turning to us with a big grin he said something in a kind of roaring voice which really upset me, really terrified me.
‘I’m going to set the house on fire tonight!’ he roared.
I instantly burst into tears. I took Uncle Henry’s jovial remark quite literally, instantly remembering the V2 rocket that had hit the Baker’s Arms bus shelter. It seemed the most dangerous
