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The radio announcement on Sunday morning, 3rd September 1939 that our country was at war with Germany, is a memory that has never left me. Although I did not understand the full implications of those words, the reaction of those around me conveyed their impact. We were grouped around the radio in the dining room of our home in Anerley, SE20 - my father, mother, grandfather and me. The atmosphere was deeply sombre - no one spoke but questioning glances were exchanged between the adults, that I could not comprehend. Unlike my parents I had no idea how this announcement would come to seriously affect our lives.

My father, Henry Turner, had survived the horrors of the First World War. He had served on the Western Front as an infantryman with the King`s Own Regiment, from 1916 to 1918. The Regiment fought in the Battles of the Somme, Ypres, Cambrai and Givency-Festubert. There had been just twenty years of peace since victory was declared in November 1918. What thoughts must my father have had as he listened to the grave news on that Sunday morning.

His reaction was very typical - in times of disaster, as I came to appreciate during the following years of the war, his thoughts were always for the safety and survival of his family. As the broadcast finished, the situation was discussed between us, and plans were put into action. The first priority was to create a shelter for my mother and me should daylight bombing commence.

With the help of our neighbour my father and granfather dug a slit trench at the top of the garden deep enough for us to shelter in away from the house. It was a start and gave us all something positive to concentrate on. And, Sunday was the one day at home that my father enjoyed - we had a long established family business in the High Street, and come what may, the shop would be required to be open, on time, on Monday morning! In fact, all through both world wars, our shop had only closed on the occasions of family funerals, and my wedding day!

As the weeks progressed we were issued with the standard Anderson shelter, delivered in parts and erected by the householder. We were advised on the most suitable place to put the shelter; in our case, about twenty feet from the back of the house. My father disagreed with this advice, insisting that should the house be bombed it would collapse and bury those inside. How right he was because that was exactly what happened on the lst October 1940.

Before this happened, however, we had a strange period of `phoney` war, when nothing very much happened on the home front. Gas masks were distributed and we all had Identity Cards - but the dreaded invasion did not happen. Children in the inner London area particularly were evacuated. Schooling everywhere was severely disrupted - schools were closed, mine among them. But teaching continued with the help of parents and our marvelleous
teachers who travelled to private homes to continue their work. We were divided into groups of six or eight pupils. We assembled two or three times a week in the home allotted to us. Somehow a school routine was followed, and we continued to take our scholarship exams, always carrying with us our gas masks as well as satchels of school work.

All through the summer of 1940 this was the pattern of my life, with parents accepting and coping with more and more restriction and adjustment. By June 1940 everyone was concerned with the increasing number of day-light air raids on London. Was this a fore-runner of invasion? My father thought so and told me that should the Germans invade, they would very quickly strike towards London, and we would be directly in their path. In fact, the main Dover to London railway line was opposite our shop. As a member of the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Guard, my father and the neighbouring shopkeepers planned to protect their shops as best they could.

It was a beautiful summer - I remember clear blue skies and sunshine. I also remember standing in the garden, near the entrance to the Anderson shelter, fascinated and horrified to see, thousands of feet above me, hundreds and hundreds of German bombers, tiny silver planes outlined against the perfect blue summer sky. It was just possible to hear the heavy drone of the bombers and their escorts. And, it was very frightening to know that they were all on their way to bomb London.

This onslaught continued day after day through July and August. When September came, a new horror was added - the night time bombing of London as well. This was the time when our trusty Anderson shelter really came into its own. My father and I slept in the shelter every night. Grandfather preferred to stay in the house
and take his chance, relying on our solid oak dining table as a shelter! My cousin, who lived with us also preferred to stay in the house, in bed!

All went well until the night of the 1st October 1940. I was fast asleep in my shelter bed, my father beside me. I heard nothing. But my father did - he heard one lone bomber coming closer, possibly damaged and thought it might crash. Then, the familiar whine of a bomb - he knew that it was going to land very close to us all. He covered me with an eiderdown. I awoke to an overpowering smell of cordite, and could hear the crashing and splintering noise of our house collapsing.

My father was up at once, instructing me to stay exactly where I was and not leave the shelter. I could hear voices, and very quickly the sound of the rescue services arriving. I struggled into my socks, wellington boots, and put my winter school uniform coat on over my nightdress. I waited and wondered what had happened to everyone. Would my father be long? After a while, an auxiliary fireman appeared in the doorway. He wanted to take me from the shelter, but I said `no`! After a while he returned, with my father, and it was arranged that I would be taken round to his shop where his wife would look after me.They were Mr. and Mrs.Firmin. He gave me a `fireman`s` lift over his shoulder, and said I was to keep my eyes tightly shut until he said I could open them. I did peep once! And saw that my home no longer existed - I remember bare roof timbers, no walls, windows or doorways. And under foot, as I was carried away from this destruction, the fireman`s boots crunched on broken glass and tiles. I was handed over to two police officers and taken in their car round to the fireman`s home which was only minutes away.

I have always been so grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Firmin for looking after me on that night. And, I never had the oppportunity of thanking them. Mrs. Firmin kindly washed the grit and dust from me, gave me a warm drink and dressed me in a fresh nightie. She had two daughters, and woke up the eldest and placed me into the warm bed, in her place.

I remember waking the next morning to see bright sunshine streaming through the thick creamy lace curtain at the window. I can see it now! During the morning my father`s sister, Aunt Beattie, came to collect me and we went to the High Street to buy clothes!

My cousin was rescued unharmed, still lying in bed! Grandfather was saved by the oak dining table! But sadly our two cats
did not fare so well - my cousins black persian was killed, and my tabby persian `Fluff` ran away and was later found in a wild state in trees at the bottom of the garden. He was caught by the RSPCA and put to sleep. As my mother had sadly died the previous December, I went to live with her sister Kitty in Cheam Village in Surrey, where I stayed for about a year. Grandfather came too when he had recovered from the events of that night.

I never miss the date of the 1st October without a thought of how lucky we all were to survive. My father, in his wisdom, had placed the Anderson shelter in exactly the safest place - the bomb fell just where a shelter might have been, just beyond the dining room french windows, and blew up the house from underneath. Very little of the house survived, except the staircase, and the oak table, which went on to give service for many years after the war, still bearing its scars!

As a family we too went on and survived even greater dangers with the advent of V1 and V2 rockets. But, my father maintained that we had much to be so thankful for - whilst we lost our home, our family shop survived, virtually undamaged, and he was able to continue his work as a shoemaker and saddler well into the 1960`s; a family tradition that I have traced back over six generations.

He always said to me - `you must be strong and survive, whatever happens, because you and your generation are our future`. I hope we have not let him down.

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