Memories of a War Child

This story was submitted to the People’s War website by a volunteer from CSV/BBC London on behalf of Maureen Wilson and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Wilson fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I was a war child and my memories of the war; the most vivid is when I was about 6. I was coming out of school and a German aircraft was coming down the middle of the road. It machined gunned down about 11 children. I was called into a sweet shop and the bullet holes hit the door and obviously saved my life, but not those other poor little devils. I ran home and my mother said” where have you been, your dinner is burnt”. Another memory is seeing a street arch take a hit and loads of people got killed.

We were in Bermondsey and we were in a Morrison shelter. There were 8 of us in the family and we didn’t go into the actual shelter. The Morrison shelter was brought to the flat in pieces and was erected on the floor in the front room and we all crawled under it. You can imagine 8 of us - we were like rabbits. When there wasn’t an air raid we just played ping pong on the top of it or whatever, but usually night after night there was continuous bombing. My mother was pregnant at the time.

I remember my father putting a tin hat on me and saying “come on love we, we’ll go out”. We went out through the street and heard the bomb. My tin hat had fallen off and when I looked up, the whole street had gone, but there was a baby sitting in a high chair with a spoon still in its hand.

It was a grand time to be alive as a child but not for our parents. My mother was petrified. She used to shout under, under and there were legs and arms everywhere. We slept 3 up one end (all the boys, and the girls up the other end so your feet were in someone’s mouth. It was fun.

I was evacuated to Leicester for 2 months but she was a real so and so. She ill treated us so were tore the sheets and got out of the window and escaped. We didn’t get far as a policeman said “where are you two going”. My father came and got us and said we were going home and stayed home for the rest of the Blitz. I think my mother said that we had 53 continuous nights of bombing.

Play grounds were bombsites but brilliant. It was a brilliant time. When you think of the kids today they haven’t got a life. We used to go out and collect shrapnel. I’ve still got a bit of shrapnel in my tool box. But for a child the war was a marvellous time. We weren’t scared. We only went down the underground once and my father said were “we not staying down here it stinks”.

I saw a lot of things a child shouldn’t see - bits and pieces. I also saw all the docks when they were alight. My father took me up to Tooley Street because we only lived by Rotherhithe Tunnel and I saw all the docks alight and he said to me “look at that love” you will never see anything like that in your life again I hope”

Once I was blown don into a basement and landed up on an iron spike and a policeman came along and they sawed me off, he put me on his bike and took me to hospital and I am holding the spike sticking out of my mouth.

On VE Day I was at Buckingham Palace with my brother, he was 7 and I was 9 and we were squashed up against the railings, my nose was on one of the actual railings. It was such a wonderful time and people were so different. They were all dancing and they grabbed hold of us and threw us in the air. Then the King came out onto the balcony. The crowd stretched from Buckingham Palace, down the mall and into Leicester Square. It was just electrifying. And two kids of that age we walked all the way back home to Bermondsey. Walked, didn’t get on a bus.

It was a grand time to be alive as a child but obviously our parents didn’t think so. My mother was petrified. She used to shout “under, under” and there were legs and arms everywhere. We slept 3 up one end. All the boys up one end and the 3 girls up the other end so your feet were in someone’s mouth. It was fun.

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