Early Years

A Memory of Southall.

SIRENS WAILING, Get up, wrap a blanket around yourself, stand on the bed and wait for Dad (Alfred Roger) or Eddith Mary (Mum) to come and go down 13 stairs and out to the shelter that was in the garden. Joyce my older sister would have already been there. Bang, clang, tin doors closing and down among the spiders. Yes I saw that doodlebug, I believe it took out half Hownslow Station. On clear nights when they were over London Dad had the door open and watched the search lights, and dog fights. Do you remember the train with its ack-ack gun going ? I read that they didn't hope to hit anything, but it was great for morale. Heston, Heathrow, Northolt aiports all very close and we did get smacked a few times. After the all-clear Dad was told Clifton Road School had been hit, I found out later he had borrowed the first bike he could find. The school was fine, but he found me in the rubble on the end of inverness Road. Do you remember that little black box with its smelly rubber gas mask? How about the barrare balloons, especialy Southall Gas Works. We ended up with an iron cage under the stairs with the gas meter. I was told Mum patched bullet holes with sticky brow paper at Heston Aiport. I could imagine how hard it must have be for our parents as I really didn't know what was going on.

---

---