Growing up in WW2

Growing Up in London during world War 2

My name is Donald Groves ,my Father was known as Eddie Groves and my Mother was Ivy Groves, I had a younger Brother Brian. In August 1939 I was 7 years and 8 months old ,we lived at 72 Culford Road
Hackney N1 and I attended Tottenham Road school. When it was decided to evacuate children from London organised by their school, my parents were concerned, so they arranged for me to be to be transferred to the same school as my elder cousin Kenneth, Ecclesbourne Road School Islington. As with hundreds of others we carried a small suitcase with our belongings and a cardboard box slung over our arm which carried our Gasmask. We were sent to Bletchley in Buckinghamshire ,on arrival we formed a long queue and were led to Bletchley cattle market where we were given a brown paper carrier bag and then led around various stalls where ladies put butter, sugar, cheese, tea, etc into the bag. The queue of children was then led around the streets where people came from the houses and picked the children they were prepared to take in to live with them. My cousin was chosen together with one of his friends but refused to go unless I joined them because he had been told to look after me, so all three of us were housed together.
The couple who owned the house were not happy because they felt that they had had an extra person forced on them. The house was a very clean and tidy place in fact you might describe them as very house proud and strict people and rules were very quickly laid down as to how we were to behave. Our clothes were criticised and I distinctly remember a cap being taken from me and being told it would be burnt. As you can imagine it was a traumatic period and I started to wet the bed at night. I was caned for this a number of times and called a pansy. My cousin and his friend were also continually being chastised for quite minor things, for instance receiving a love letter through the letter box from a girl at school. We also had to have our school hours changed because they did not fit in with the lunch time of the local Co Op where the man of the house was the manager. This caused us a bit of a problem at school because we were held up as being special.

When I was evacuated my mother and younger brother who was 3 years and 7 months old were also evacuated to a village named Bugbrooke in Northamptonshire where they were billeted on a farm. My Father remained in London and was working in a reserved occupation. When the news reached my parents of the way we were being treated it was arranged for me to be transferred to be with my mother, and my cousin and friend were returned to London. Life was not very happy on the farm and although the lady of the farm was very nice my mother had a problem with the farmer, she did not explain what the problem was but the end result was that we left quite hurriedly and returned to London on November 5th !939, I am sure about the date because on returning my aunt apologised that as there was a war on we could not have fireworks.

I spent the rest of the Blitz in London .Next door to our house was a small factory where about 3 or 4 ladies worked on fly presses, the employer had to provide a shelter big enough to take the workers as well as his family. It was quite deep and very damp but nevertheless we were able to use it every night, so each evening we climbed the wall together with our bedding settled ourselves in the underground shelter and there we stayed till morning. My mother then spent the day trying to dry and air the blankets etc. I can clearly remember such things as watching planes fighting in the sky, a landmine descending on a parachute, a totally red sky when the London Docks were set alight

Page 2

Our schooling was very badly interrupted due to the air raids, and for some time we did not attend school at all. One of our favourite pastimes was to collect pieces of shrapnel, we also used to climb about in the rafters of bombed out houses. We were constantly reminded not to touch strange objects, because the German planes used to drop small unexploded bombs which were called Butterfly Bombs, they would get caught up in trees and such like and explode on touch.

When I was 11years old I went to Shoreditch Central School which was in Hoxton Street Shoreditch ,again our schooling was badly interrupted and many of our lesson took place in the lower hall which had been heavily reinforced. I had to walk to and from school each day and it was quite frightening if the siren went when you were halfway At this time it was the second phase of the bombing and it was first of all the Flying Bombs (Doodle Bugs ) we watched them flying across the sky with everyone waiting for the flame go out and the engine stop and it start to fall, then smoke from the explosion. .sometimes you would see a fighter plane try to tip it´s wing to alter the direction. ,Then worst of all came the V2 rockets, with no warnings, one in particular destroyed a pub called The Trafalgar in Southgate Road which was quite close, no more than 400 yards away .

At the end of the war we collected lots of wood and old furniture from the bombed out houses and lit a huge great bonfire in the street which melted all the ashphalt. We also had a really large street party.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.