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As winter drew on and the dark hours lengthened, the air raids lasted longer and the eagerly awaited “All Clear” took longer to come. One lasting memory during my night duty turns was a narrow escape by London Bridge Signal box.

I took a call from the signalman, who said “I have something hanging over the end of my box, will let you know what it is.” The next message came from the control point, saying that the station had been evacuated the Underground stopped running, because the “something” was the parachute of a large land mine, which was caught on the gable end, leaving the mine swinging clear of the ground. Being a mine, it was a Royal Navy job!

The Navy duly arrived, defused it and cut it down; had it gone off, the whole great railway concentration of London Bridge, Charing Cross and Cannon Street would have been out of service for a considerable time.

There was another dreadful night near Christmas, when a firebomb attack on Fleet Street created a massive cloud of burnt paper. As we waited for our train home, this cloud was drifting in the calm morning air, heading southwest high in the sky.

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