‘Dad said Hitler really means it this time’
On the eve of the 80th anniversary of the Blitz, survivors tell Joe Shute how Londoners coped
Tomorrow marks the 80th anniversary of the first day of the Blitz. At around 5.30pm on September 7 1940, hundreds of German bombers commenced a bombardment of London. Some 450 people were killed during the course of that evening, and 1,600 injured. The Luftwaffe returned to attack London for 57 consecutive nights; the Blitz as a whole would span eight, long months, leaving swathes of the city in ruins and a death toll of more than 43,500 (similar to the coronavirus pandemic today).
Here, four survivors remember the events of those dreadful few months in which a city was tested – and pulled together – like never before.
Margaret Bennett, 88, lives in Eltham, southeast London. She has four children, seven grandchildren and five greatgrandchildren. Her husband, John, died in 1996 On the first day of the Blitz, the weather was beautiful. We were out in our communal playground in Wapping, east London, and then the sirens went off and the sky turned black with German bombers.
We took shelter in the stairwell of the flats where I lived with my parents and brothers until the all-clear signal came. Then my dad, who worked in one of the tea warehouses on the docks, said we needed to get out of Wapping immediately. He told us: “Hitler really means it this time.”
We went up to the flat and my mother packed some clothes. We were each allowed to choose one toy and I picked my doll.
Our plan was to get to Bellingham, south-east London, where my grandparents lived. As we crossed London Bridge, you could see the docklands and the river on fire.
We caught a 47 bus but, due to the bombing, we kept being turned back.
How the driver made it through all that, I don’t know.
We got off the bus at Bellingham and took shelter in a shop doorway; my dad put his arms around us, and I felt his despair. We were so close to my grandparents’ home, but it was too dangerous to make it. Luckily enough, two strangers took us in and we spent the rest of the night at their house.
That December, my dad’s cousin, an air raid warden, was killed in the bombing.
Community and resilience – that is what the Blitz was all about and I feel the coronavirus might have introduced some of that spirit again.
It was the most important time and sometimes I feel those days – and the people that died – have been forgotten.
Mavis and Sidney Shogger, 87 and 92, married in 1953, live in Manchester. They have two children, eight grandchildren and 16 greatgrandchildren. Mavis: I can remember the first air raid. We were in our house in Tottenham, north London, and when the sirens went off my parents rushed my sister, Rita, and I into the Anderson shelter in the bottom of our garden.
In the shelter, we had games like Ludo and Snakes and Ladders to distract us, but the sound of the bombs at night was awful.
I remember coming out one morning and the windows in our house were shattered: a landmine had come down and demolished seven streets in the area.
Everybody had somebody in their family injured, and one of my uncles was killed. One night, he was out playing billiards, and his wife and son left for a shelter without him knowing. He heard their house had been bombed and he ran back to search through the rubble: somebody told him that they had made it to the shelter, and he started running over there, but on the way was struck by shrapnel and killed instantly.
Perhaps I was a very serious child, but I didn’t find any of it exciting. My school, Down Lane School in Tottenham, was bombed and I remember the windows being taped up to stop the glass breaking and covered in sandbags. All of us children were given these little gas masks, but we seemed to carry on.
I remember it all so clearly and watching the terrible explosion in Beirut recently brought a lot of those memories back. Even now, I don’t like fireworks.
Sidney: I lived in Stoke Newington, north-east London, but was evacuated to Hertfordshire before the Blitz started. I remember standing in the village where I was sent and watching the glow in the sky where London was on fire.
I was 11 when I was evacuated, and didn’t really understand what was happening. Fortunately, I stayed with a wonderful family – I couldn’t have been better looked after.
Back in London, I lost an aunt and a grandmother in the bombing. They had taken cover in a large public shelter in the West End when it received a direct hit – an uncle of mine had to identify their bodies. They just showed him clothing. It wasn’t like in the films.
George Morris, 97, lives in Bristol. He has three children, four grandchildren and six greatgrandchildren. His wife, Jean, died in 1975
I was 17 at the start of the Blitz. The previous year, I had joined the Air Defence Corps in Ilford, east London, where I lived with my parents.
Like everybody else, we had to take cover when bombs fell, but because I was a cadet I was exempt from normal restrictions, and every other night was out on fire duties.
The bomb damage around Ilford was terrible, and made all the more worse by the fact so many of the houses in those days were so old they had started to crumble anyway.
One night before Christmas, we were on fire duty. The sirens went off and then all of a sudden we heard this terrible whine coming down just across the road, 100 yards or so away. A bomb hit this building, and it took the whole side of the house off.
We ran over and discovered a lady in her 70s in bed hanging halfway down the wall. She was OK but absolutely frozen still – she couldn’t move. The five of us had to perilously get her out of bed and down on to ground before alerting emergency services to get her to hospital.
The following May, I started RAF basic training in Devon when my commanding officer told me I had been given a gallantry medal, which I needed to go and collect from the Mayor of Ilford. I still have the medal.
We should remember the Blitz, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s just one of those things in history. I see a lot of similarities to what we went through then and today. Nobody expected it, but you just carry on.
‘As we crossed voer London Bridge, you could see the river on fire’
‘An uncle of mine had to identify their bodies. They just showed him clothing’