Airaids on Goodmays railway goods yard.

My memories are of 1943-1945 (I was about 3-4 years old) we lived in Castleton road Goodmays at that time. We were supplied with two air-raid shelters an Anderson shelter for the garden dug into the ground and the other a Morrison table indoor shelter. This was a metal cage with bars all round. The idea was that you slept in the cage at night and used it as a table during the day.
Although mum and I used both, because it took time for dad to get his artificial legs on, he lost both plus an arm in WW1, he more than often stayed in bed if the siren went at night saying, “I survived once I will survive this time as well” which he did. It was almost not the case for me, as the following shows; the practice at that time was to evacuate children to the country, and as dad’s family came from a village near Bury-St-Edmunds, it was logical that I stayed with relatives.
On one occasion I can remember seeing a troop of German prisoners of war marching past my Aunts cottage, I ran up to the first one and asked him if he was a German, to which I can remember to this day was the reply ‘Jar’. Mum would come down often to see me and dad and she would spend a lot of time away from Goodmays. At one particular time dad and I were in Suffolk and mum was in Goodmays preparing to join us. She decided to go to the local post office, and whilst away a V2 rocket landed in Goodmays Park, so we were told, among other damage several houses in Castleton road lost their roofs.
Among these was ours, it has been said that the slates from the roof crashed down onto the back garden, the place where I spent most of my time.
Three vivid memories stay with me even today.
The first is when laying in bed at night the sound of the constant ack-ack sound of the train mounted pom-pom gun protecting the railway goods yard at Goodmays, a prime target for the bombers. The second, is the exploding bomb that blew open the back kitchen door with me in front, it sent me and a jug of precious milk flying. Lastly, I remember walking in the garden, looking up and seeing the sky full of planes, they almost filled the whole sky, fortunately they were ours possibly the ‘D’ day invasion build up.
My earliest recollection is that I remember being fed with orange juice and cod liver oil and malt, which I loved, along with most other children. These were given to us to prevent rickets a bone reducing disease, because of the lack of protein found in meat. We also had whale meat, powdered eggs and spam (processed meat) unfortunately I got hooked on spam and continued to eat it for years after the war. Fruit was hard to come by, even a few years after the war, and I saw my first banana when I was 8 years old. Finally I can remember that Mum got her sugar ration wrapped in a blue stiff paper, she would unwrap the packet carefully to get every grain out of the folds, it was so precious.

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