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As a almost 4 year old child I lived at 76 Church Rd Willesden with my widowed mother and my grandmother.We lived in the ground floor flat and there were two other flats in the house.There had been an Anderson shelter erected in the garden for the use of nos 74 & 76 and it was rather crowded as an aunt and her childern were living with us then. My father had died on november 16th 1939 and on november 16th 1940 he saved our lives. he had built a wall of sandbags to protect the entrance. when the house suffered a direct hit that night and it fell onto the shelter the wall held. we were in the shelter for 2 days and during this time we had a bottle of water and a bottle of parafin both in large Guiness bottles. During one of the dark times (saving the paraffin)my cousin drank from the wrong bottle and stated it tasted like boot polish . We still wonder how often she ate boot polish.
When we were dug out we were taken to Oldfield Rd school where a group of Irishmen broke down the gates which were locked. Two men in no 74 were killed my mother and the neighbour exchanged hair curlers. one of the few things they had left. We were taken to another aunt in Neasden Where my Goldfish that had survived the bomb was stabbed with a hatpin by my very young cousin. We were given a flat to rent in Lower Place and I stayed until the Buzz bombs became really bad and i spent the last year of the war evacuated to an aunt in yorkshire.

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