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I remember I was a young girl of eight years old living in Silver town in East London, a plane flew over the houses really low, and wrote the words ‘Silver Town’ in the sky. Of course all the local children thought this was amazing! Nothing could have prepared us for what came later on that very same day. The next plane to fly overhead very low was a German bomber, without warning it bombed Silver Town, flattening every inch of my home.

I remember all the children being gathered together and taken into the nearby ‘Tate and Lyle’ factory, it was all underground so we were thought to be safe there. We were all being given sugary treats to cheer us up; I remember this providing temporary relief from the chaos around us. Soon after this, air raid wardens stormed in ordering we all got out. It turned out that a German plane had crashed onto the rubber factory next door and we were all in grave danger again.

We were taken out into the open air to catch the Woolwich ferry; I remember the horrific sights that awaited us. We were taken across the river and German planes were machine-gunning the ferries as they crossed. Thank God we weren’t hit. Next thing I remember was being taken to a place where all the children were gathered together, I was sent to my aunt and uncle’s in Luton, Bedfordshire. We were all sat around playing ‘Beat your neighbour out of doors’, a popular children’s game at the time. We all heard the plane fly over, my aunt was quick to say it was one of ours. Having heard so many German planes at home in London before I was evacuated I knew differently. I remember saying to her, “no, that’s definitely a German plane”.

The debate was still in full flow when an incendiary bomb came straight through the roof, right down the stair well and into the bottom of the house. Luckily it didn’t go off! At that point we all rushed down to the shelter, even though I was right about it being a German plane, nothing prepared me for that. I remember being quite scared.

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