Memories of My Fireman Dad

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Lesley Carrick of the Norfolk Learning Partnership on behalf of Barbara Phipps and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I was eleven years old in 1940 to ’41 and lived in New Barnet. My Dad worked as an auxiliary fireman in the city. He was in a reserved occupation, but as he knew the geography of the city well, he was drafted in.

We had an alley by the side of our house, and we knew when Dad was home because he’d cough at the end of it when he got off his bike. One night we could see a tremendous glow of light up the city and we knew that something big was happening and that Dad would be involved. It was such a relief when we heard the squeak of the bike and the little cough. We ran out: “Daddy’s home! Daddy’s home!”. We were really shocked to see what looked like a white bandage round his throat. We thought he had been hurt, but it turned out to be a sweat band to stop chaffing from his collar on his uniform!

The school air raid shelter was in the playground, and a large tin of small Cadbury chocolate bars was kept there which was only to be opened if the ‘All clear’ sounded after 1pm. We all prayed for a late ‘All clear’ but it only happened once.

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