Free Jellied Eels and Zeppelins by Sue Taylor Page A

dugout at about six in the morning. Mostly, we just talked and dozed. Directly we used to nod off, a bomb would drop and wake you up. In the winter-time, the raids started at about six when it was dark.’
    The Anderson Shelter or dugout as it was known was made of corrugated steel and stood in a pit four feet deep. As it didn’t have a proper floor, only earth, it flooded whenever it rained. During the London Blitz in 1940, the city was bombed every night for more than two months.
    ‘Eight of us used to sit in the shelter, very often with our feet in water. It was so very crowded and we could hardly move sat on these wooden benches. As for going to the loo - you had to wait until there was a lull in the bombing and then dash outside! If we had time, we would make up drinks to take into the dugout with us - we used to use any old mugs. There was no heating at all, so we would put old thick socks on our feet to keep warm, but then they would get wet, so we’d have to take them off! Of course, as there were so many of us in there, we generated our own heat, which would then cause condensation to drip on our heads!
    At The Elms cricket ground at the back of where I lived, there were playing fields and the River Lea beyond, where there were horse-drawn barges. The Germans dropped a load of bombs there, ‘cos they thought it was the Thames - it stretched almost to Edmonton. So, when we were in the dugout during a heavy raid, we were being shaken about through the impact of the bombs exploding. Your head resounded with the ‘Bang! Bang!’ as you sat there with your feet in water. After the war was over, I think that about four to five hundred unexploded bombs were found there.
    There were Molotov baskets (Incendiary Bombs) and they used to come down all alight and you could only put sand on them to put them out. Land mines, rockets, buzz-bombs - we had the lot!
    I was sitting in front of the cooker crocheting once when the air raid warning sounded. Mum said ‘I’m not going in the dugout tonight - I’m fed up sitting with me feet in water.’ All of a sudden, we heard an explosion, flew up the passageway and got down on our knees. Mum was in front and me behind, we were almost lying down. We could hear another one coming and as we listened, I looked at my hand - my crochet hook was just inches away from my Mum’s bottom! I’ll never forget that as long as I live.
    We sat in the dugout and Dad would say he was going for a walk to make sure everyone was all right. If people were frightened and a bit nervous, he’d go and talk to them and all that sort of thing, you know. He was very good and got a medal for it, ‘cos I found it in one of his drawers when he died.’

    1942: Joe in his NFS uniform
    Joe, for his part, joined the National Fire Service (NFS) after failing his medical for the services because of a leg injury. He completed his training at Forest Road Fire Station in Walthamstow and was the leading fireman at Ensign, where he made, repaired and inspected air force cameras:
    ‘He fell down the iron staircase, where he worked and twisted his leg two weeks before his number was called up for the Air Force. They made you stand on one leg and swing the other and he couldn’t stand on his bad leg, so they asked him to come back in three months time. During those three months, they dropped his age group (he was six years older than me) so he had a choice of going in the Fire Service or the Home Guard. Where he worked at Ensign, they wanted him in the fire service, so he chose that which meant that he could do a bit of work as well as be a fireman.
    Joe loved his fire service. I remember later, when we came to Doddinghurst and the chimney caught alight, he knew just what to do - he took out all the front and stuck wet sacks up it. It was when I had an Aga and it was Christmas morning and I was cooking me chicken in it and it made the chimney breast red hot upstairs. And he knew what to do - he was really clever.
    He