My Wartime memories in the East End

On January 7th 1935 I was born in a Hospital in the Borough of Poplar in the East End of London not far from East Ham where we lived. My first recollections are at the age of four. We were evacuated at the outbreak of World War 11 in 1939. I say we, that is me and my brothers, two being older than me. We left a London station in the morning and arrived in Somerset in a very small Hamlet called Rickford, which after London was so peaceful. My memories are all of fun and happiness apart from missing my parents. The family who took us in were very good to us and treated us as there own. They were Mr & Mrs Lintern and their son George who was in the Royal Navy. George sent a postcard that he came across of Rickford with me and my brother Bill riding our bikes in the road. The postcard is at the bottom of the text.



In the Hamlet there was just one small pub called The Plume Of Feathers and a small church next to it. With what I thought at the time, was a very deep pond in the grounds. I remember one day in the winter falling in the Brook which ran through the Hamlet and my eldest brother Ian dragging me out by my clothes before I disappeared in a duct. That sticks in my mind as though it was yesterday. Also winter memories of the fun we used to have on our sledges down the slopes in the old orchard, which was on the opposite side of the road at the back of the pub. Of course there were no cars to worry about in those days so we could quite happily ride our three wheeled bikes up and down the “main road’’ and play out without any danger whatsoever, as it was not really a through road because it ran into the brook at the far end of the Hamlet. I remember my Mother visited us a couple of times with my youngest brother Alistair and my eldest brother Ian who stayed with her in London. We often used to go up the hill at the end of the main road by the church to a family called the Kingmans who had chickens that we used to feed. If my memory is right they also had evacuees staying with them.

I do remember that we returned to London before the war had actually ended because I have vivid memories of the air raids and many trips to the Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden after the wailing sound of the siren to let you know there was the approach of the German bombers and the constant sound of the Ack Ack bombarding the bombers. And the next day going to school and picking up shrapnel from the previous night’s raid. The other main memory is of a Sunday morning walk I often did with my brother to the Boleyn at West Ham when on the way back we saw a doodlebug coming up the Barking Road towards the docks. It was just as though it was yesterday. It was only six or seven hundred feet in the air with flames belching out the back of it, it went over our heads and the engine cut out. I remember we were pushed to the ground by a man that was also walking along, and then there was an almighty explosion as the rocket hit the ground not that far from the West Ham football ground. All the glass shattered from the shop windows, and of course the final memory was of the VE street party when the streets were closed to any traffic, mind you there were only four or five cars in our street at that time. As you can see from the picture at the bottom of the text we all dressed up in anything we could find. These are just a few of my wartime memories.