Figure 1.--This is the bomb that lan and I played on at Alexandria Palace. We were there when the Prime Minister declared war and the first air raid siren went off. We immediately took off and headed for home.

After the German invasion of Poland, Beitain and France declared war (September 1939). The Government ordered a mass evacuation of children from the major cities. No children were evacuated from our area in 1939, as we were some 10 miles from the centre of London. Most of the children sent to the country were the inner city children, especially those in the East End of London where the docks were. My cousin was a teacher in Dagenham, Essex, where the Ford works were. She and her whole school were sent to Ispswich. This seems and extraordinary decision as that was a port and closer to Germany. They were eventually sent to Wales. Then when it seemed likely that there would be no invasion, they drifted back to their homes in Dagenham. I knew something was wrong when Dunkirk happened. From what I remember our parents told us that our soldiers were coming home from France. I don't think I really understood the significance until I saw the film "Mrs. Minver" when we were in the states. That would have been about 1943. I think I grew up very quickly in my first 2 years in America. I think that being with children at school (who were also my playmates) 2 years older than I was, had a big influence. I was surrounded by adults in my new home. My foster parents were about ten years older than mine and they had two teenage daughters, one at college and one in her last year at High School.

Cinema

We didn't go to the films that often, but we did have TV. It was very primitive and the transamissions were largly experimental. The first BBC TV Transmitted was at Alexandra Palace, in our back yard so to speak. The signal was so strong we had to have an attenuator on out aerial. TV transmissions stoipped when War broke out. I think because the signal would have directed German bombers to London. The films I remember featured Shirley Temple Tom Mix, Lone Ranger, and Snow White. I missed Fanatasia as I was in bed with measles. A little strabnge now that I think about it because they were all American films. Somehow the British films were not as appealing for us children. Mother liked Music Hall and we used to go to Matinees during the school holidays.

First School: Wendover High School for Girls

I started school when I was 3 years old! Well I was still 3, but a month later I was 4 years old. I went to a girls' school. I think my parents chose it because it was near home and had a pogram for younger children. This might startle some people today, but in England a lot of girls' schools had co-ed kindergarten and junior forms. My experience was not unusual. The reason being, that boys didn't go to all boys prep schools until they were 7 years old. Some boys did stay on a bit after they were 7 as a photo of my late wife' school shows--Bradford Girls' Grammar School. (Today prep school generally begin at age 8 years, but mosthsave hunior schools for younger children.) Sometimes the boys that stayed on were the children of faculty members. At any rate, it gave me a head start and I could read and write while I was still not 5. I wore school uniform from my first day at Kindergarten. At Wendover the boys wore grey shorts, purple jacket and purple blouses and ties - purple with a horizontal white stripe. The blouse were not shirts as they had elastic round the wiast and didn't tuck into our trousers. I recall that point clearly as my vest used to escape the waistband of my trousers, if I had been playing about. I think they buttoned up to the right though, so they were designed for boys. We had purple blazers with a pocket badge and a purple cap with badge on the front centre. I think we only wore the blazer in the summer term. We wore grey jackets at other times. We had grey knee socks with purple bands on the tops. I left Wendover High School for Girls when I was 6 nearly 7 years old and went to Franklin House School until the War came and I was evacuated.

My Prep School: Franklin House

Abount the school I attended, it was a small private Day Prep School. A prep or preparatory school in England is a kind of private primary school preparing children for public schools, private secondaty schools. At the time they were almost all single gender schools. The school has quite small classes, The 'Number in Class' stated was the number in my set. I was in Form 3 Set A. There were about twenty in the class. There was one girl in the school for our last term. She had a brother there, and her school had closed due to the War. I seemed to be absent quite a few times. One occasion was measles which stopped me seeing Fantasia. The 'Late' occurrence upset me. I had never been late before. Hitler cause it. We had an air raid in the night and over-slept. This is the school report which was presented to the Superintendent of Schools when I arrived in America. This and a personal interview was used for my class placement in September 1940.

Preparing for the Luftwaffe

The Government encouraged individals to prepare for the anticipated Luftwaffe attack. There were two principal options. We had a reinforced kitchen rather than an Andersen shelter. The other option was a Morrison Shelter. This was built before my brother and I left home. There was a criss-cross of large timbers, giving extra support to the floor above. We had a large strong table underwhich the family would snuggle down. There were two exits -- one into the back garden, and the other into a side passage. Fortunately, our house escaped serious damage, although there was blast damage, from a V-1 flying bomb later in the War (1944).

Declaration of War (September 1939)

The first air raid warning I experienced was at the moment war was declared. The declaration came at 11.00am on the Sunday Morning. The weather in London when the War broke out was a period of Indian summer. I remember that day vividly. My brother and I were playing in out shirt sleeves because it was so warm. We were on the grounds of Alexandra Palace about half a miles from our home. The English boy sitting on the sea mine on one of the HBC pagesd reminded me of boyhood games we played at Alexandar Palace. There was a World War I bomb there that had failed to explode and had fallen in the grounds. Somehow the he fins were buried and the nose exposed. It projected about 4 feet above ground. The challenge for us boys was to leap on to the bomb and try and stay on it. The problem was that so many boys had tried it over the years that the metal nose was highly polished by the seats of countless trousers. If one leapted too far you went over the top; too near and you fell back from whence you had come. The bomb of course had long sence been defused and emptied of explosive, but we always pretended it was real! Another memory was the bell like quality emitted when the bomb was hit with stones. Clearly it was empty and resonated. I think the bomb must have been removed sometime during the War, possibly for scrap metal. I am sure it would feature on the Alexandra Palace Website if it was still there. It was there that my bother and I were playing on Sept 3rd when Prime Minister Chamberlain announced that we were at war with Germany. Soon after an air raid siren sounded. It was the continuous tone, so we knew it was a real raid and not a practice. We ran helter skelter back home and found our parents outside the house looking for us. It turned out that it was a false alarm, but scary nonetheless.

Barage Baloon

We had a barage balloon in the park opposite us, which was of interest. It caused some excitment one day as the wind got up and one of the fins was ruptured. It wnet our of control and was like a fish on the end of a line. It was doing loops. the cable was quite low and several neighbouring houses lost their chimney pots.

Air Raid Warnings

We had a few air raid warnings while at school and were ushered into purpose built shelters there. There were a couple at night too. We disobeyed orders and sneaked to the windows to watch the searchlights. We had a searchlight battery just across the road from us in a park. I never did see an enemy aircraft.

The Blitz (July 1940)

A few years after the 1936 peaceful scene in our back garden, France had fallen. The Channel stopped the Panzers, but the NAZIS attempted to defeat Britain by air. And thus my family and millions like them, unbelievably found themselves on the front lines of the most destructive war in history. Incredible as I look back now. Of course we boys had no real understanding of the danger. This still boggles my mind when I think of it. The Battle of Britain began as soon as the Luftwaffe set up theit bases in France (July 1940). That was when our parents bundled us off to America. Shortly after we left, London was targeted by the Luftwaffe. The Germans didn't target the suburbs, but the odd stray bomb might fall. There were no "smart" bombs in World War II. Most bombs did not hit the target, in fact most missed their target by a wide mark, The main target near us at Wood Green were the railway marshalling yards for King's Cross Station. They were about a mile away. The cause of greatest casualties would be later in the War after D-Day when the the Germany started sending over the V-1s (June 1944). There were also parachute mines. My father had the very unpleasant duty of sorting out the remains of bus passengers hit by a parachute mine. Some 40 people were killed. A school friend of my sister lost a leg, but by that time Grham and I were safely in America..