Wartime Child

Although I had been evacuated to Wiltshire, curiously enough my parents decided I should come home to the East End for the scholarship examination and I had, from time to time been back on 'holiday'.
The result was that I was in the East End for some of the blitz and the subsequent doodlebugs and V2s.
One day I had gone to the shops some half a mile away and was walking home when I heard a doodlebug approaching. Suddenly the noise stopped and I knew that meant trouble. I scooted the final 50 yards home, threw myself into the Anderson shelter and pulled a blanket over me. There was one almighty bang and the sound of falling masonry.
When it died down I poked my head cautiously out of the shelter to find clouds of dust all around. The bomb had hit the shops from which I had just come and our local grocer and butcher and some of their staff were badly injured.
My mother, who was ar work just the other side of the shops, came flying home and pushed aside a burly ARP warden who tried to stop her passing the site of the explosion.
She found me in the garden but the funny thing is that I cannot remember being frightened!
Even after night raids this was still the case - most of us children were too busy seeing who could find the biggest piece of shrapnel or collect the most aluminium strips which the aircraft dropped, presumably to trick the radar. I now find this lack of fear inexplicable but it seemed to be general. We just got up and went to school as usual.

Woodsplinter.

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