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My Memories of WW2 — Derek G Stoddart

I was born in 1938 in Deptford — Salvation Army hospital and my Grandparents and my parents lived in Albion Road Walthamstow, and later moved to Ainslie Wood Gardens Chingford.

Our house which was an end of Terrace house, was rented by two families, we had the downstairs and other family named Covington lived upstairs. They had one daughter named Maureen, and Mr Covington was in the Navy, so was away a lot.

We did not have a bathroom and had to share the upstairs toilet, so bathing was done in a tin bath in front of the fire in the sitting room.

We only had heating, which was an open fire, in the sitting room and an electric single bar fire in the front room, so the front room did not get used. There used to be Frost on the inside of the upstairs bedroom windows, and when laying in bed, you could see your breath when you breathed out !! it was so cold

The house backed onto Chingford memorial Park, which unfortunately had an anti Aircraft Gun and Searchlight in it so it became a target for bombing, and many of the houses in the surrounding streets were bombed, and our house had no windows at the back of the house on the ground floor, only some thick curtains, very cold in the winter.

There were also Barrage Balloons in the area.

We had an Anderson shelter in the back garden, which always seemed to have large spiders, and only candles for lighting, and had four bunks in it. We used to go into it every time that the Siren went off, sometimes we all used to squeeze into the tiny cupboard under the Stairs. Later we had a Morrison Shelter in the front room and this consisted of a steel plate supported by metal uprights to protect us if the ceiling collapsed.

After an Air Raid, when the “all clear” siren was sounded, most of the children in our street, used to go out to collect “Shrapnel” (for those who do not know is fragments of a bomb ), as a good piece could be exchanged for marbles or other goodies, and we would also go out to see what we could salvage from Bomb sites, as many houses were empty, the occupiers had moved to the Country for safety reasons. I remember carrying home a very heavy (for a young child) electric fire with coal effect and re repainted it and used it for many Years.

The German planes sometimes used to drop what looked like Sweets but these were small blocks of wood, wrapped in sweet papers, to look like sweets.

I remember going to the house of one of my school friends living in the same road, who had a Black and white television set, which I think only had one or two channels, and this was the first time I had ever seen television. We went to watch some historic event but I cannot remember what it was

I went to Wellington Avenue Secondary school which meant that I had to walk about 2 miles to school and back each day in all weathers. The school seemed to have a very strange selection of teachers and discipline was rather lax. There was one French Teacher who used to hide in the cupboard in the classroom and then appear when we were all messing around and catch us !!

I hated football and cricket, so we were allowed to go running and this meant we could go out of the school grounds into the local park, but usually the group of us used to go to the local “tuck” shop to buy ice cream, and then return looking as if we had run a long way

I used to sit next to one of the windows and we all had “ink wells” in the desks and pens which had to be dipped into the ink to write, and the pupils used to slowly at the start of a lesson pass their ink wells across the class when the teacher was not looking, and we dropped them out of the window, and we told the teacher “please Sir we do not have any Ink…”

Another trick was to put calcium Carbide (used in old style cycle lamps) into the ink weeks and they would all foam ink all over the desk.

I was very sick as a child and used to travel by bus from Chingford up to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, twice a week, and I was always sick and we had to get of the bus a few times on each trip, much to my mothers annoyance. The bus used to travel along Lea Bridge Road and on one occasion there was a V1 (Doodle Bug bomb) which was flying very low, and was flying in the same direction as us just about 100 feet above the roof of the bus. The driver was not aware of this and we were on the top floor of the bus and the conductor made us all get on the floor between the seats.

The doodle bug engine eventually stopped and it began to descend towards us but fortunately it veered off to one side landing behind some houses !!

On more than one occasion when we were in London, we could not get home and slept on the platforms on the underground stations, where there were rows of people in sleeping bags / Blankets armed with thermos flasks and sandwiches, many had lost their homes and had nowhere else to sleep.

After my Father, Wally, volunteered for the Army he was posted to various postings mainly in the South, as he was in the RASC (Royal Army service Corps) and was involved with operation PLUTO (Pipe Line Under the Ocean ) which pumped petrol across to France for the UK Troops.

We used to follow him and stay close to where he was posted, we did not posses a car so travelled by train, which was awful as they were completely packed with people all standing in the carriages and corridors and a journey to Cornwall took nearly all day as the trains travelled slowly.

I remember seeing children getting onto the trains with small brown paper packages or old brown suitcases holding some of their possessions and they all had a brown paper luggage label tied to their coat, many in tears as they were leaving their parents behind in London.

We stayed on one occasion on a Farm in Wales, and I used to sit on the lap of one of the Farmers who let me drive the tractor.

It was nice being away from the bombings but still not very nice as we used to see our planes going over on raids and German planes coming in to bomb one of our Cities. We all used to be able recognise the sound of our planes and those of the Germans, as they were distinctly different. Also the country lads did not like us “city” types so we were not really made to feel welcome, especially in Wales, as we knew nothing about Farming.

The only advantage was that food was a little more plentiful, than in London, where food rationing was a major problem, unless you were lucky enough to be able to afford “black Market” food . In London a special treat was a visit to Manze,s Pie and Eel shop, or being able to buy half of a baked sheeps head complete with its Eye

My father was posted to Holland for the last couple of Years of the War, and was billeted in a house of some Dutch people in Eindhoven named Beekx ?? and then later he was posted to Emmerich on Rhine in Germany,

When the War ended we had a street party, in one of the nearby streets, with tables set out in the road, as there were not that many people who owned Cars. I still have a photo of that.

After my father was demobbed shortly after the War Ended we went to Holland via Brussels, and this was the first time that I had ever seen or tasted Banana’s. I liked it in Holland as the people were exceptionally nice.

We then went to Emmerich to stay with the people who my father was billeted with and the mans name was Fritz, who had lost an arm whilst fighting on the Russian front. He ran a small grocers shop but no one had any money so everything was on credit, so to be able to survive he used to drive across the Border to buy potatoes and fruit, but he used to smuggle in watches hidden in the sacks of potatoes, which he then sold when he got back to Germany.

It was not very pleasant in Emmerich as the children used to spit at us when we walked in the street.

The thing that was the most notable was to discover that the average German family had not wanted to go to war anymore than the British did.

Derek G Stoddart

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