Waterloo Sunset

"What did you do in the war, Nan?"

"Me? I was in a reserved occupation".

How dull it sounds.

1939. All the boys in 'our gang', nineteen to twenty-one year olds couldn't wit for their call-up papers, they volunteered, mostly for the RAF, the glamourous 'Brylcream Boys'. Most of the boys I worked with were Terriers, they were the first to go.

The well-known building firm I worked for evacuated most of its staff to Cheltenham. I was left behind, part of a very small skeleton staff. Everyday I travelled by Tube from Kennington Station to Green Park.

When the blitz died down a little we were subjected to nuisance raids. The sirens would go, then usually, less than an hour later, the 'all clear'. So we didn't go down into our shelter at work until whistles blew, meaning "Danger! Move!".

The Tube which ran under the Thames was closed during raids. If I was going to work I sat and read at Waterloo until we moved again. I was no shirker and made up lost time when I reached work by working through the lunch break.

However, coming home was another matter. If a raid was on I alighted at Charing Cross, walked over Hungerford Bridge and back onto the Tube at Waterloo where the trains turned round. I often had dates, also I liked to get home for "ITMA", "Monday Night at Eight", and my favourite, "Hi Gang" with Vic Oliver and Bebe and Ben, (the two Americans who stayed and amused us, unlike some of our entertainers!) Hitler seemed to like this programme too as their signature tune, "I'm just wild about Harry", seldom finished before the sirens went.

Going home one night when the alert was on I was walking briskly over Hungerford Bridge when a small plane was caught in the crossed searchlights. Suddenly the ack-ack opened up! I have never run so fast in my life - a four minute mile! Over the rest of the bridge, down the slope and safely into Waterloo Tube, with a breathless sigh of relief.

I never told Mum.

Several other stories:
Fire-watching
A week's holiday on the land: bean picking and spudding (1940)
Wartime wedding (1942)
Buzz bombs
Evacuated (1944) for birth of my son (1945)

Also have written a memoir of my life from 1920 to the present.

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