| I was born in July 1939 and was only weeks old at the outbreak of WWII. My father was a publican who had served from 1914 to 1918 in WWI and was too old to serve again. We were blasted out of our pub in Islington and moved to The Freemasons Arms in Camberwell. My aunt (fathers' sister) lived in the upstairs flat and worked behind the bar. I remember my mother taking me to the window to show me the strange plane going by, she didn't know what it was but it made an unusual noise which suddenly stopped. When the explosion came she threw herself over me to protect me. My brother was born 2.5 years after me and our parents considered us too young to be evacuated; "we either all survive or we go together"; Dad used to do fire watching when the pub was closed for the night, either from the front step or the roof. The night the bomb dropped on us it fell on the front door step but luckily we were all asleep. We did not go the the shelter in the street as we had a cellar in the pub and beds were pushed together so that all five of us could sleep down there. The bomb blew out the side walls and the building collapsed onto us. Luckily one or some of the girders in the roof of the cellar created a small space above us to stop us all being killed. My dad was the only casualty as the till from the bar above fell on his head and he was very bloody and unconscious. I remember by mum and aunty both crying and praying and shouting for help. I thought I would help by pushing all this debris that was in front of me out of the way. That nearly brought the house down, literally. I don't know how long we were down there but eventually the emergency services heard our shouts and we were pulled out more or less feet first and put in the shelter in the street. I remember looking out of the shelter door as my dad was taken away in an ambulance. The road seemed to be very bright and wet and busy with people running around and hoses and vehicles and dust everywhere. We were very lucky to have survived, many were killed by that bomb. We went to someone's house for a cup of tea and the WVS found us some clothes to wear. The lady in the house was very surprised when mum combed all the dust out of her hair, she thought mum was an elderly woman with grey hair. We stayed for a while with relatives then mum, brother and I went to Redruth in Cornwall to stay in another pub with a publican friend who kindly found room for us away from the bombing. According to the records the flying bomb dropped at 04.10 hrs on 25th June 1944 outside The Freemasons Arms which stood on the corner of Hillingdon Street between Warham St and Farmers Road. 11 dead, 4 seriously injured, 24 slightly injured. Many houses demolished and between 200 and 300 needing repairs. This address was partly in Lambeth and partly in Southwark and these figures only refer to Lambeth and do not include casualties or damage in Southwark area. The whole area was demolished and is now The Brandon Estate. Incidentally Michael Caine came from Warham St I believe but he was probably evacuated by this time. Dad never had another pub but did the 'knowledge' to become a taxi cab driver. He always said it was even harder at this time because as he cycled around learning the whereabouts of places they disappeared after another nights bombing. As fast as he learnt them Hitler knocked them down. |
