My Battle of Waterloo

I was born in Charing Cross Hospital, Westminster, London, to Annie and William Hall, who already had a daughter, Gladys and a son Billy. I was raised in several different houses in Waterloo, Lambeth. At the time of the anecdotes I relate here we were living at 11 Whittlesey Street. Billy was in the army, Gladys worked in the Civil Service, mum worked as a pastry cook in Thames House, for some ministry or other, and my father worked night-times for the Daily Express newspaper. I was attending St. John’s School, Exton Street.

On the 1st September 1939 the children from St. John’s were put on a train at Waterloo, with several teachers and some mothers, who were there to help look after the children. (I was lucky my mother came along to help). We were on the train for hours and no one seemed to know where we were heading for, not even the teachers, and everyone was trying to guess. Eventually we arrived at Exmouth, Devon, where we were taken to a hall and the local people chose the children that they would like to have living with them. I must say it was rather embarrassing and felt we were being herded like cattle.

I hated being in Exmouth, it was a beautiful place and the family I was staying with was very kind, but I much preferred Waterloo and my mum (the mothers only stayed for about 2 weeks to help us settle in). I was really a worry to my parents always writing and asking to go home. Eventually I got my way when the lady I was staying with heard me telling the other children that I had enough money for my train fare to Waterloo. She wrote and told my parents that she wouldn’t be responsible for my actions. And, I suppose, as the air raids hadn’t started they decided to have me home. Soon the blitz started and I was sent to London Colney with friends of my parents who were renting a house there. After a while, my mother moved there too, but not for long as we moved back to Waterloo shortly afterwards, for what reason I do not know.

One day my mother, sister and I were indoors when we heard a doodle-bug approaching. We ran into the garden to the Anderson shelter and just managed to get inside when the engine cut out. I put my fingers in my ears and screwed up my eyes and curled up in as corner on one of the bunk beds, terrified. Then I heard a loud bang and felt loads of soil and dust falling on me — I was sure that we had been hit. I opened my eyes and it was really black! I shouted to my mother that we were buried and that we didn’t have a spade to dig our way out. My mother turned round to tell me that we were all right, and as she did so, light flooded into the shelter. Her generous figure had been blocking the doorway as she called to Chuck our Canadian soldier lodger (who had stayed in his room) to see if he was all right.

When we finally emerged from the shelter, we discovered all our windows were blown out but we could not see the missing glass anywhere. It was only when we walked into the house that we realised by the crunching sound under our feet that the glass was under the linoleum.

The doodle bug itself had fallen on Cornwall House, Stamford Street, which was reputed to be bomb proof when it was built in the First World War, and I must say that it was really solid as it only damaged the top floor.

Another time, I was round my Aunt Liz’s house with five other members of my family when the air-raid warning went. We did not have time to run to the Anderson shelter in the garden as we could hear bombers overhead and a bomb had exploded while the air-raid warning was going. So we decided to shelter under the kitchen table. Minutes later the ‘all clear’ sounded but we could still hear the ominous purring of an engine so we stayed under the table for safety. After a while we started to remark that the plane was hanging around for a long while. Suddenly we realised that the ‘purring’ was in fact Tiger the cat, who was pleased to have our company!

In St. John’s Church Waterloo Road, the crypt was used as a shelter during air raids. One night during the height of the blitz the church took a direct hit. The bomb fell straight through the roof and landed right in the middle of the altar. Fortunately the altar was made of solid marble and saved the lives of all the people sheltering in the crypt. As Father Hutch said, “St. John’s took the blow to her heart”.

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