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TOOTING BEC & LEMON POP,
I was born in 1938 in Tooting, part of South London and lived with my mom, dad, and my sister,
My dad was like a bear that had that had just found a honey jar, he was so pleased he had got
the son he had always wanted. We lived as a normal family until Sunday September 3rd 1939 at 11 am when the then Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announced that we were at war with Germany. Although all the preparations were made, we were all issued with gas masks, and we had to draw all the curtains so we had a blackout. We didn't have reason to use the gas masks as nothing happened here this was the period they called the "phoney war". My mom soon found a use for a gasmask, I hated them. in fact I was terrified of them
they were horrible objects, If she wanted to clean one of the room's and didn't want me to pester her she would put a gasmask in the doorway, that kept me well away. Heaven knows what would have happened if I had to use one for real. While the war was on in Europe, life here went on as usual. Time marched on. I was nearly 3 years old. my dad used to take me out in my stroller at the week end. My mom thought he was taking me to play on Tooting Bec common, which wasn't far away, instead he would take me to a local pub and buy me a Lemon pop while he had a beer and chatted to his friends; then after a while we would go home "Not a
word to your mom" he would say. this went on for quite a while, then one day he wasn't feeling very well and he didn't feel like going out. it was here that I blew the gaff by saying "weren't we going down the pub?". "Oh. is that what you do when I'm not about" but she said she didn't mind
him having a beer as he didn't smoke, or gamble and he hated soccer,I hate it too like father,like son.
Being a Canadian, he was brought up on a diet of (ice) hockey and baseball .I love
hockey but I'm not so keen on baseball, he had worked on construction sites and down the coal mines in Nova Scotia Canada. The only job he could get here was on construction sites. He was in ill health as he was out in all weathers. As time went on the war came to England in the form of the German air force, otherwise known as the Luftwaffe. They, started their bombing of special parts of London but some of them strayed into the outer parts of London. My sister was a telephone operator at Waterloo Exchange near the center of London. She said they wanted men to be trained to work at the Exchange during the night time. He applied and was accepted. It was another world, so different from the construction sites and his health got better.
As the war intensified all the traffic stopped at nightfall, the subway stopped as people took shelter down on the platforms; even the streetcars (tram cars) and buses stopped not even cabs plied for hire for fear of getting bombed, so he had to get to Waterloo before 9pm. He worked from 10pm thru 6am the next morning. Then he and his friend caught the early streetcar to Tooting. The other shift he worked from 6pm thru 2am.
The next morning their gaffer who was lucky to have an auto, and as he lived near to them, he gave them a lift to Tooting Broadway subway station then it was a short walk to home. One night however, he wasn't there so there was no transport at all and they had walked about 3 miles and reached Kennington Oval, South London, when the air raid siren sounded and so they went for shelter in a store doorway. One of bombs scored a direct hit on a shelter in the park across the highway. They reached the doorway as the bomb exploded. My dad reached the doorway first, his friend was not far behind when the massive blast and debris reached them. His friend was cut down and fell dead at my dad's feet, lots of debris spread out sideways then hit my dad as he turned to protect his face. One large piece hit my dad in the lower back; when it had stopped he looked at his friend and decided that there was nothing he could do he carried on alone in a lot of pain after another couple of miles he was spotted by a . The injury was to be his bad luck from which he was not to recover;In march 1942 the pain got worse and he was admitted to hospital with cancer and died 3 weeks later. It was a terrible shock to my mom as they were still very much in love. Shortly after that, my sister got married and went to live in Scotland, This left my mum and I on our own were to get into many scrapes together as time went on.

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