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At the outbreak of war I was working as a qualified microbiology technician at Hammersmith hospital.There was a need for a microbiology and pathology laboratory at Hillingdon - now a Service hospital - so we transferred there to set one up.

We took over the old dispensary, and built the lab from scratch.This meant that specimens from Hillingdon patients and outpatients did not have to be sent across London for analysis.The chief technician was Mr Hackett;another colleague was Mr Widd.The other part of the lab was occupied by chemistry and haemotology.

There was some tension between the Hillingdon and Hammersmith technicians. One grumbled to me about "interference from Hammersmith".I told him:"Look here,we didn't want to come,but we all have to make the best of it."

[He was married in 1938 to Amy Florence Peachey.He was then 23 and she 22.]

At first,I lived in digs that were found for me.I was so fed up at work that when I went to find my digs for the first time I lost where they were.I asked,and was directed to them.I was billeted at nighttimes with an old couple,Mr and Mrs Rennie,who had to take me.The day I left,I called for my things on the way home and she'd already stripped the bed.They hadn't wanted me there.

Amy and I went looking for a house.We saw a man up a ladder,and asked him if he knew of any houses vacant.He said we could have that one - and we found our house just like that.It was on Church Hill Avenue, Hillingdon.

At the hospital were soldiers from Dunkirk and so on.We used to see the wounded walking about the grounds all the time,and I made a point of falling into conversation with them.Lots of them had limbs missing.Some had no feet.One soldier was brought in - he'd been working in a furnace, and there'd been an explosion.He was pierced with pieces of coal - you've never seen anything like it.Another came in on a stretcher. He was covered in packets of Players cigarettes,thrown on him on the way.

We used to have students from St.Mary's Hospital come to eat with us.One or two of our staff volunteered for the Battle of Britain.A pathologist from Hammersmith lost both his parents in an air raid, and became Lord Stamp overnight.One colleague lost his son when the Germans sunk the ship carrying him to Canada.

Professor Alexander Fleming,who was in charge of all emergency medical services in London,came every week with a little penicillin for us - our ration for the week.The medical people had to decide who would have it.It wasn't then made commercially.

Amy worked in a laundry in Hillingdon.She found herself the work before the order came that everyone had to do something.When the siren went at 5:30 every night I went straight to our Anderson shelter.Amy would have the tea ready.I knew she was down there worried.Our neighbours didn't have a shelter,so they came in with us.The company was very handy,as it was very boring.We used to read and talk.We built them a tier above our bed,and they used to sleep there.

We had the occasional bomber come over.One bomb landed 50 yards from the house,and shattered the windows.It blew the shelter's candles out.It was a whistler,a terrible bomb.We found two small boys playing in the crater - it was 60 feet deep.How they got down there I don't know.We heard one say,"Bugger,this bit's hot!"They were playing with shrapnel!That was a lucky night.

One morning,I saw a flying bomb going over rooftop level - it had stoppped whistling.I've never moved so fast in my life.You never knew where they'd drop.Some fell straight down,some glided.

A V2 flattened a bungalow estate about a mile from Hillingdon.I never saw one - they were so quick and silent.The damage they did was horrible.

On the whole,the hospital did well.The staff took turns firewatching every night.One night, the old maternity hospital had a near-miss,2 or 3 days after the patients were moved out.It was damaged;I watched it happen.[The hospital was later destroyed in a separate raid.]

I had no problems with being in a reserved occupation.I was willing and ready to go if I was called up,though - to the Medical Corps., I suppose.The technicians went for a drink in a pub one night and got looks for not being in uniform.I felt uncomfortable and had one drink only,then left.

There were some lighter moments.One day,we found half our guniea pigs dead upstairs in their cages.Someone suggested that it was stoats,and I said surely not.So we put some sticky glue on some cardboard panels and laid them down.The next day,we found the panels outside!Dr King bought some white mice for experiments,and a couple of months later a man from the kitchen came up to ask what colour our mice were.They'd been catching piebald mice in the pantry - the result of our mice escaping unnoticed and breeding with the common brown variety.

One evening,I went for a drink with a traffic warden.I said that I bet he wouldn't dare to knock over a Belisha Beacon ahead of us - and he did it!I said, "You silly fool,I didn't mean it!"But in the blackout we weren't seen.

[Amy went into Hillingdon hospital to have their first child,Valerie,in mid-January 1944.It was a difficult birth and Amy was left inside when the hospital was evacuated during an air raid as she couldn't be moved.Valerie was born on 18th January 1944.]

The night she was born was a proper circus.I was cooking tea.These low-flying bombers came over - they lit the place up like nothing else.They were after the RAF station at Uxbridge.I was so scared,I ran out with a frying-pan in my hand.I don't know what I was going to do with it!

Later,I wondered what was going on,so I went to see them."Is she scared?" I asked the nurse."No," she replied,"how are you getting on?" "I can do most things for myself," I said."Yes, I've got evidence of that upstairs," she replied - she was a dry old stick.

Some time later,I was outside our front door in Church Hill Avenue,having taken the baby out for a walk in the pram - and this flying bomb came over and cut out right overhead.I didn't know where it would fall.I took the baby out,put a blanket on top,and crouched over her,in the long grass.Luckily,it glided away.[Amy often said that he pushed her into a bed of nettles as he did this.She hadn't seen the bomb,and "called him everything".]

They were horrible days,but there was a real satisfaction in knowing that you were helping,and doing something worthwhile.

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