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It was 1945 and the Second World War was taking place, I wonder how much of the events that took place are what I really remember or is it that I cannot separate the two?
I was a few months past my fourth birthday and lived with my parents and two brothers and two sisters in a terrace house in Kimberly Road, Edmonton.
My earliest memory was waking up lying next to my eldest brother, Stan in a bed full of broken glass, apparently an bomb had had hit the Tottenham Gasworks opposite our house.
The bomb blast extensively damaged the house; the door off my parent’s bedroom was blown completely off and landed in the cot of my baby brother, Leslie. It was only by luck that he had had an accident in the cot and my mother had taken him into her bed to change him and left him there.
The wall between the front room and the sitting room had separated and the curtain from the front window was imbedded right through the wall. The house was damaged so bad that we had to evacuate and were moved to a house in Lower Edmonton until the house in Kimberley Road was repaired.
I can clearly remember the Salvation Army coming with catering vehicles and giving us food and little presents for the children, I was given ludo set made from recycled cartons and coloured. Even though I could not play ludo then, I recall treasuring it, as it was the only toy I had left.
The memory of this charitable act stayed in my mind for the rest of my life and I always contribute to the Salvation Army collection, when I could afford.
We had fun each morning wondering the streets looking for shrapnel, despite the government warnings it was a competition among the boys to collect the largest or most interesting piece from the last night air raids.
When the air raid sirens sounded we used to go to the communal air raid shelter across the road (our garden was too small for our own). Sometimes if it was raining or really cold we would all hide under the kitchen table.
We were all lucky to come through the event safely and have a lived a full life.

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