77 years ago this week.

Fate allowed my family to survive WW2. On the 7th Sept 1940 the Blitz started and one of the main targets was the docklands where my family lived. As homes were being destroyed the neighbourhood was being urged to take shelter at centres like schools ready to be evacuated. With my grandfather at work at Tate & Lyle my nan refused to go until he returned home. 


The evacuation centre picked for their road was Hallsville Junior School. Nan still refused to go when it started to approach evening. Finally my grandfather arrived home after getting out of the factory gates just before lockdown. He and his mate had run through the gates as they were closing but both had been blasted through a shop window when a bomb dropped. His mate didn’t survive.

Luck had it that a small group of buses where at the end of their road and going towards north west London. They found a space for themselves and my toddler of a mother. That night they ended up in Harrow.

Within days their home was beyond repair and they settled in Harrow. On the 10th Sept hundreds still waiting at the school awaiting evacuation were killed when a landmine made a direct hit. Official figures say 77 died but the number was nearer 600. That sort of loss could never be made public during war time. 


Today the garden centre my daughter works at had a private flying display over it by one of the Spitfires from Biggin Hill. One of the few of the ‘few’ keeping memories alive of not just battles but of people lost and saved.