Aspiring Journalist Alan Haylock's experience of the June 1944 Aldwych Bombing.

This story has been submitted to the Peoples’ War site by Morwenna Nadar of CSV/LONDON on behalf of Alan Haylock and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the terms and conditions of the site.

The newsroom, as always, is a buzz of activity. It never changes and a ‘slow’ news day is a rarity. Batteries of teleprinter machines spew out reams and reams of copy from all four corners of the globe, while elsewhere someone is calling out “Boy” for an important errand. Or perhaps simply to run next door to Jolly’s, Fleet Street’s popular sandwich bar, for a dozen rounds of tomato and sardine, no crusts, lettuce, and a dash of salad cream. Things build up quickly with D-Day only a week or so old, so a pub lunch at The Feathers round the corner, the usual watering hole of most journalists, is not on today’s card. War correspondents, fresh from over in Normandy, write their copy, and protest that London with its buzz-bombs is no safe place to be.

I’m about to leave for the Ministry of Information in Russell Square, where Reuters has its own office, and where I work part of the time. Then the deputy editor calls me over. “Alan,” he says, “We’re a bit short of people and I’m looking for a junior staff member to do three hours on the roof tonight. Seven till ten. There’s ten bob in it for anyone who volunteers and you can have tomorrow morning off.” ”I’ll volunteer,” I said without any hesitation. I mean, at 17, ten bob is, well, ten bob, and I’d still finish my shift at ten. Doodle bug watch is compulsory and is a 24 hour affair.

I walk briskly through editorial to where the sub-editors work and out on to the fifth floor landing. Sub-editors have little liking for office boys — unless they want cigarettes or a newspaper. The general view is that they never wash, comb their hair or polish their shoes, and are always skiving off somewhere. I take the stone stairs two at a time, thoughts of a bit of extra pocket money fresh in my mind, and in seconds I’m down in Reuters’ grand marble hall, pseudo Romanesque but a fitting reminder of the firm’s business skills since the time when messages were sent by carrier pigeon. I wave to the two commissionaires behind their big oak reception desk and dash through the swing doors into the street — to the greatest street of all.

An 11 bus is drawing away from the kerb. I throw myself at the passenger grab rail, heave myself on to the platform, and stump up the stairs. The conductor looks at me wryly when I pay for my ticket. “You’ll do that fancy ballet stuff once too often,” he says. “There’re others coming along.” I sit halfway along the deck on the right hand side and look down at the great newspaper offices: the Daily Telegraph with its familiar clock and the shiny coloured glass frontage of the Daily Express a few doors away. Then Bouverie street on the other side of the road, leading down to the embankment, where the 12 and 13 trams stop: the Star and the Daily Mail, the News Chronicle and the News of the World. One day I would work for them as a reporter, travelling the five continents finding the story that would be the scoop of all scoops…..One day.

My bus struggles up the hill towards the Law courts and I hold on tight each time the driver changes gear. The conductor calls out “Chancery Lane. Anyone for Chancery Lane? Next stop the Law courts.” Two young men in pin-striped suits carrying briefcases descend the stairs. Then I don’t know what happened. The bus seemed to rear up like a frightened horse, settle for a brief moment, then veer over at an angle of 45 degrees, first to one side, then to the other. Windows on both lower and upper decks blew in, but miraculously none of the passengers were injured. The roof of the bus in front peeled back as if by some giant tin-opener.

I saw ahead of me a huge column of thick, black smoke rising into the air where the V-1 had come down somewhere between the Air Ministry and Bush House. Our bus had stopped and the handful of passengers got off quietly and without panic, and went their separate ways. Perhaps we were becoming attuned to the daily onslaught from across the channel. I walked slowly into the Strand and along Aldwych. And into a scene of utter devastation. Bodies lay everywhere, some already dead, some dying, and some injured in varying degrees. I looked down at a middle-aged woman seated on the pavement among the ankle deep debris. She was propped up against a shop front and was deathly white. One shoe was missing and both her stockings were torn; she was terribly cut about the neck, face and head. She had auburn hair and was still clutching her handbag. I was about to bend down to see if there was anything I could do when I felt someone come up behind me. A voice said, “There’s nothing you can do for her, chum. She’s gone. Died about two or three minutes ago. We’re just waiting for the ambulance.” For a moment or two I stood and talked to the First aid man, surveying the carnage around us. ‘I’d get away if I were you, lad,’ he said. I turned round and took one last look at the lady by the shop front, and my eyes were moist. It was almost as if I knew her.

I made my way back to 85, Reuters Building and gently pushed the swing doors open. “‘Ere, lad, look at yer. You ‘aint been caught up in the Aldwych business ‘ave yer? You got blood on yer face.” It was Fred, one of the commissionaires, talking to me, but I didn’t grasp that at first. I was obviously suffering from a bit of shock. “Come on, lad,” said Arthur, his work mate. “In the lift and up to the canteen. A nice hot, strong cuppa tea is what you want. I’ll ring the newsroom.” I sat in the canteen and drank my tea, and gradually got back to normal. After all, I ‘served’ as a messenger in the Civil Defence during the London blitz and I’d seen dead people before. The news editor himself came up to see me as if I’d been injured, and asked if I could still do my flying-bomb watch. I assured him I could. As an ‘aspiring’ journalist, I should have phoned in an eye witness account of the Aldwych incident but telephones were out of action over a wide area. However, although late, my ‘story’ still went out over the wires and that pleased me. It pleased me a lot. My first real bit of journalism!

At seven o’ clock sharp I went up to the roof to start my watch and settled down in one of the three deckchairs which had been ‘borrowed’ from somewhere. I thought about the day’s dreadful events and the lady with the auburn hair to whom death came so suddenly and so swiftly on a warm summer’s day in June 1944. And I thought about the kindly Civil Defence First Aid man and all the others — scores of them — who sought to bring a measure of calm to a scene of indescribable chaos. I leaned against the parapet rail in the gathering dusk and looked out over London with its million roofs and chimney pots, thin wisps of smoke curling upwards into the warm night air; the narrow streets and lighted windows of this great capital; the families gathered round the wireless sets to listen to Tommy Handley in ITMA; blackout curtains when it got dark, and the corrugated iron air raid shelters in the gardens. This was the London that had survived for a thousand years and would survive for another thousand. This was the London where I was born and brought up. The London I loved.

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