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Part One of an edited oral history interview with Mrs. Florence Rose Wilkinson about her experiences of living in London during WWII. The interview was conducted by Jenny Ford on behalf of Bedford Museum on 24th August 2005.

“I was born at Stockwell. South Lambeth Road, actually between Stockwell Road and Vauxhall. I was born there in 1914. When I left school I went to work in the City of London at a firm named Carver, Gregory and Company. It was a textile warehouse as most of them were round about then in ‘The City’.

When we heard Chamberlain and Hitler had signed the ‘Munich Agreement’ in 1938 we thought oh, well that’s good! But the day war broke out, oh that was incredible that day. It was a beautiful day the 3rd of September, it was a lovely day, it was a Sunday. I think we had the radio on, so ‘we are now at war’ the air raid sirens went — we all looked each other — gosh, ‘What do we do! Well, whether it was a false alarm or whatever — we all looked at each other, ‘what do we do!’ That was the first thing we said.

Frank and I had got engaged as the war started and we married on August the 3rd 1940. Now my ‘going away’ costume was a navy blue costume, I mean I had a white wedding and we weren’t ‘going away’ because he had to go back to work you see and my navy blue suit I wore that until it literally wore out because I wore it all the time you see. I mean you just had to wear things. And your summer dresses well you kept on wearing and wearing them. I mean clothing was on the ration but you really had to be clever to make them yourself. I could make my own clothes. I’ve got loads of patterns I was always going to Weldon’s for patterns, yes, 6d a pattern.

It took us seven years to save £100. We had a flat but we owned everything that was in the flat. In those days you never thought of, well there wasn’t such a thing as hire purchase, that was brought in years after. We moved into a flat in Wandle Road. My husband worked in London and was called-up and sent to Farnborough. He had to live at Farnborough, just lived in private accommodation, it wasn’t the Forces or anything like that. It was difficult for rations and then when he used to come home for weekends he didn’t bring any rations with him so that’s when I gave up sugar. It was difficult, but nobody ever thought we’ll give in, we never, ever, we thought — blow me. Nobody ever said, ‘Oh, it’s been awful!’ Oh, no it never crossed your mind.

We had been issued with gas masks and mine was in a cardboard box with a bit string to hang it round your neck. You had it all the time, you took your gas mask. The first air raid was in the week I was on holiday after I was married, I was married on the 3rd of the August 1940 and the following Friday which would have been the 6th or 7th of August this Blitz went. I remember hanging out — we lived in the upper part of a semi detached house — I remember hanging out the window and seeing these aeroplanes, I didn’t realise that they were dropping bombs. There were only one or two and they were small planes, but oh, gosh. It was a shock!

I had a mile to walk to the underground station. The first time I saw a house that had been bombed I walked through Morden Hall Road I think it was, it was all trees - it was like a rustic road and all wooden fencing around the park and I turned the corner into the main road and the house directly opposite had been bombed. Of course I knew the people who lived there, I was absolutely breathless - the parents were killed but the son and daughter weren’t. They were all playing cards when it happened. Yes, it was awful! Well — you were shocked but then on the other hand we thought — well we’ve got to go on — you just carried on. I’d get off the tube at Moorgate if the tube was running otherwise I’d have to get out at London Bridge, walk over the bridge past the Bank, Cheapside, Milk Street, Bread Street any of those streets you could get down you know.

The ‘Battle of Britain’, that was dreadful! We used to be in the flat, that’s before Frank went down to Farnborough at the RAE - we used to go down. We used to come home from work and I used to cook a meal. And even if there were some air raids going on we always stayed up in the flat but then as soon as we’d finished the meal we’d go down and go in to the Anderson air raid shelter in the garden. And there was a deckchair in it that Frank had and I had a couple of beer bottle crates and I curled up on that — it was jolly uncomfortable! But yes after that we started buying a house, not far away, and there was a brick shelter in the garden so we were much more comfortable, we had bed bunks and things. I did my Fire Watching in Morden of course. And I remember one Saturday I had to go into a little brick place and climb in through the window with a stirrup pump directed to a mock fire — they lit something on the floor but we had to go in with a stirrup pump.

Dunkirk, that was dreadful. I remember hearing on the radio about the boats and I didn’t really know what had happened and then of course the next thing we knew was ‘all our troops are being evacuated’ and of course then we did know. My cousin was one amongst those that were evacuated. He was, all the soldiers were on lorries or whatever to get to the coast and he either fell off or was pushed off and he damaged his back. He wasn’t wounded but he damaged his back and he was in the war zone for several hours before he was picked up and brought back to England. Eventually he was sent to a different Regiment and he went on and served in North Africa.

The Air Raid Precautions Warden would come round and say, ‘You are showing a light!’ A little tiny glimmer of light. But once you’d got it, it was done properly and nobody ever showed any light. Everybody had number ‘8’ batteries in their torch, I always remember number ‘8’ batteries and we had little torches and people found the kerb and things. I can remember one night we went to my parent’s home, that was in Morden as well, and Frank was home for the weekend and we’d been up to my parent’s home and he said, ‘I’ve made us hats to put on when we come back in case of shrapnel falling.’ I can see these funny hats he made but they were only cloth, they wouldn’t have done us any good. I thought, well how funny, any rate we put them on. I can remember the shrapnel falling because it was bright, you know, it was red when it fell. But we were fortunate.

Well I went to the pictures once a week if I could get in, at the Odeon in Morden. I don’t suppose that’s there anymore. Yes, I used to meet one or two girlfriends and we used to go there. We used to sit through the Pathé News and all those. It was value for money. I think we paid 1/9d - we had good seats for that. There were some nice films. I remember Claudette Colbert. I don’t remember what she was in. But there was a film, they were a couple, they were in a hut or house or a cottage somewhere and there was only one bedroom and these two people — oh, dear! So in the end they hung up a blanket between them — oh, we thought, how dare they! Times do change!

The company, Carver, Gregory and Company where I worked was located in Aldermanbury but by Christmas 1941 we’d moved down Aldermanbury into Aldermanbury Postern, I thought that was a lovely address. It wasn’t very big and it was a continuation of Aldermanbury, it went across London Wall. I worked for one of the buyers as a shorthand typist. I was a very lowly girl when I started of course but by 1941 I’d worked by my way up and I was the shorthand typist to one of the Buyers. Yes, it was a nice, interesting job. I was very happy there. And at the Christmas of the Blitz I’d had no end of presents from various travellers, you know commercial travellers that came in. And somebody even brought me some nylon stockings, oh, a great thrill! Of course I couldn’t carry much home because I had to go home on the underground to Morden in South London. And a lot of stuff I had to leave behind, boxes of chocolates and things like that, so we left them of course in the warehouse, in the offices upstairs. A lot of our typewriters and ledgers and things were all put in the air raid shelter in the basement which the firm had had built, a big concrete room actually. The basement was used for packing all the goods.
The morning after the Christmas Blitz I got as far as London Bridge underground station and then of course the tube was closed and we had to get out. And we walked across London Bridge to the Bank, along Cheapside, down Milk Street across Gresham Street, couldn’t get into Aldermanbury, it’s a very narrow road and it was closed because there were Fire Engines from every town in the southern counties. I mean there were Fire Engines from all over, from all different towns, you could see their name on the side. It was incredible! Every building was alight and we just couldn’t get down Aldermanbury. The men used to do the Fire Watching there. One of the men I think was killed. His name was Wilkins - I forget what his Christian name was. He was an older man and he was on duty that night, I presume he died, I didn’t hear anymore about him.

So I went down the next street which was Basinghall Street - that was narrow but it wasn’t as narrow as Aldermanbury and I remember seeing the flames coming out of the roof of the Guildhall Library. And one building had a stone entrance and the stones had been painted sometime and the paint had run down with the heat of the fire, it was incredible, it really was. No matter how old I get I’ll never, ever forget that. Any rate I walked down Basinghall Street until I got to London Wall and of course there weren’t many people about because most of the men had been called-up and London wasn’t as busy then as it is now. When I was walking down Basinghall Street we were ankle deep in water, broken glass, debris of all kinds and burnt paper, it was coming down like burnt snow. It was incredible! When I got to London Wall I met one of the girls from the office. She’d been a bridesmaid at a wedding just before and she’d brought up this long box containing her bridesmaids dress, she was going to show us in the office but of course she never did. The two of us walked along and then we saw the boss so he said, ‘Oh, good I’m glad I’ve seen you. I want you all to meet in Frascatti’s (a restaurant) in Oxford Street at one o’clock.’ Of course we had to walk there and he wrote it on this box in case we should forget. So there’s poor Ivy carrying this box and we met quite a few people, eight or nine out of about thirty I suppose who worked in the entire warehouse. In those days of course the most expensive lunch you could buy was 5/- (25 pence). Anyway he bought us all lunch, what we had I can’t remember! He said well he’d got a house, a detached in Winchmore Hill Road near Enfield and we were all to go there the next day. He said, ‘I have had goods delivered there’ (there was a certain amount of stuff there) so he said, ‘we shall start again.’

So of course the next day — I was living in Morden which is southern end of the Northern Line and I had to go right up to Arnos Grove which is the northern end. So it would take me a long time, particularly if there had been diversions on the way. And we had to get out of the tube at Tooting Broadway, queue up for a bus, go all around the world and then back Clapham or something like that. I arrived at some time or another the next day. So we looked at each other and we said, ‘Well we haven’t any address books, no records!’ So we had to start thinking of our customers - so we were all sat looking at each other for three hours I think — who’s name do we know who’s name begins with ‘A’? It was really funny. Well after a week or so we gradually got a few people, well there was no point in writing to one or two. I don’t know what you call them, not rescue people but that sort of people who went into the buildings as they cooled down and they opened the air raid shelter door in the basement of the old building. They got out the ledgers which were 10 or 12 inches long and eight inches wide, four inches thick, they had metal edges and when we opened them the pages inside were slightly scorched! It shows you how hot it was, it was terrific - it really was.

I worked there from New Year’s Day or something like that until September and I really couldn’t manage it any longer because I was married. My husband worked at Farnborough, the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. And I couldn’t get any food because when I left Morden in the morning the shops weren’t open and when I got to Arnos Grove or Palmer’s Green, anywhere up there, they wouldn’t let you take anything because I wasn’t registered. So I had great difficulty in getting my food so I used to have to go on Saturdays when we didn’t go in and get whatever I could. So I thought well it’s no good I’ll have to resign. So after more than thirteen years in the firm I very reluctantly resigned. I left on the Friday and on the Monday morning I received my call-up papers! Any rate I went to the Labour Exchange and I told them that Frank was doing war work and so they said, ’Well there is a position up here in Morden with an aircraft accessories firm.’ Really only about two or three people had taken over a shop and they bought tools from various manufacturers — like Vickers Armstrongs who made tools and he would know about it and he would ring them up and say ‘oh, send them to so and so’. We didn’t actually handle the goods and I stayed there until 1944, two months before David my elder son was born.�

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