Our Closet Shave Of The War

A Memory of Petts Wood.

My father was a sailor in the Royal Navy and was overseas from 1938 till 1944, so my mum and I lived with her parents, Mr and Mrs Walter Davey at 76 Woodhurst Avenue, Petts Wood, three doors from Chesham Avenue. Our Anderson Shelter had been installed during the Dunkirk evacuation, and by early August of 1940 we were spending out nights in it. Grandad had sawn short the legs of our old kitchen table on which was placed a mattress, which allowed mum and I to get some sleep lying down, while Gran sat near the doorway in canvas folding chair, Grandad was on duty with the ARP. Being only about 5Km from Biggin Hill, we did hear a lot of attacks going there before they turned on London, and on the 7th September we were all in the back garden on a very hot early evening when the bombers, flying very high, went on past us and up to the City, In late October we all trooped out to the shelter for the usual routine of settling in for the night when Mum discovered that it had a foot of water in the bottom, so we didn't go down there that night. When the siren sounded we gathered in and near the cupboard under the stairs. Gradually, things calmed down and nothing much was happening and I dozed off on a cane lounge chair thing.
The next thing of which I was aware was my mum shaking me to wake me up. A bomb had landed in the back garden of No 80, the corner house. The two parts of the semi detached building next door, were rendered unfit to live in and we escaped with only the loss of the windows and all the roof tiled slid off, and our big brick kitchen chimney was blown off. Gran was thrown against the internal wall and hurt her back quite badly but luckily we were all still in one piece.
I was six and half and though I missed the bang, which annoyed me very much, my memories of the night are still quite vivid, I remember every time we took a step there was the crunch of the broken glass all over the floor inside It happened about ten PM and I remember the people living next door being told they had to move out because the building was dangerous, so at midnight they were homeless and on the street. We never used the Anderson again as it was permanently full of water. We were also turned by the police a few weeks later when a UXB landed in the road and went in at an angle which took it underneath Nos 76-74, but that can wait till next time. The ruin next door was our hide out, meeting place and clubhouse, until it was knocked down and rebuilt in 1947
Geoff Pogson
Sydney Australia

---

---