1926 -
It was just after my fourteenth birthday, the legal age for leaving school. I had recently returned to London because I was getting very little schooling and I didn't want to stay away from home any longer. Also, "nothing was happening" with the war.
My oldest brother, who was married, was serving in the Royal Navy. My parents and my three youngest brothers had moved from Stepney to Wandsworth while I was "evacuated." Now my intent was to find a job and attend an adult evening school. I did enrol and attend evening classes, and I did go to work, first at the Singer Sewing Machine Co. and later in an office. Unfortunately , it was about that time that the war "started to warm up.
Wandsworth was a fairly safe place when the bombings first started, but the Stepney area, with its closeness to the docks, became a nightly target. The first few air raids started fires in the wharves and warehouses that lined the docks. The fires created a beacon for the German bombers who came, night after night, to destroy London.
Everyone tried to live as though times were normal. One typical English saying was "you just have to get on with it, don't you?" So people continued to get up in the morning and go to work, acting as though they hadn't lain awake most of the night listening for the next bomber to go over. We were aware of the difference in the sound of aircraft. We could tell the British from the German planes by the drone of the engines. One could also hear the whistling sound of bombs passing overhead. Unless the bomb dropped on you, you "got on with it" and went to work the next morning.
Occasionally there would be a daytime raid. Often there would be Spitfires chasing the enemy planes away from London, or engaging in a "dog-fight" if the "Jerry" wouldn't leave. I remember one "dog-fight" taking place at midday, just as I was walking along Allfarthing Lane, on my way back to work.
The sound of shrapnel, zinging as it hit the pavement, was enough to send me scurrying for shelter. A "pub" was on the opposite side of the street and I ran to get inside. I could scarcely believe it when the barman told me to get out. I said "But, but, but..." He again said "Leave. You can't come in 'ere Miss. This is a pub.
I was finally able to get put the words, "there's a dog-fight going on overhead. I can't stay out there. It's dangerous." The few customers in the "saloon" had to see what was going on and, traipsing outside and casting a watchful eye on the sky, they carried their beers with them. (I didn't hear the barman tell them they couldn't drink outside, in public. Nor did he tell them to bring his glassware back inside, where it was safe.)
Once the excitement was over, the customers went back to their drinking, and I hurried back to work. I had worked at this office for about a year, since leaving "Singers," but that didn't permit me to be late just because of a "dog-fight". Everyone was subject to "wartime inconveniences" and you just had to get on with it, didn't you?