Flying bombs 1944 – Abraham Wilson
My recollections at the age of ten, with my twelve year old brother, were rummaging, among the contents of a bombed school in Lukin Street E1. Its seems strange I have no memory of any one else being there.
The school playground roof, appeared like a upward ski slope, from street level.
Marked out on the roof playground, in white paint was a net-ball pitch.
My brother and I explored parts of the school that were intact and we collected exercise books and various school items including a pocket watch. On the same bombed site we retrieved lots of small brown envelopes that contained condoms, at the time we thought they were balloons, I believe a chemist shop had possibly been hit along with the school.
With two other boys we took over, a room in a empty house which we used as a ‘Den’ where we would, like squirrels hoard, proceeds taken from bombed houses.
Understandingly those actions affected our morals, and the consequences affected our later life’s
Our family were of mixed race, English Indian, Afghan and African backgrounds, we lived in Fenton Street Stepney during 1944., after four years of evacuation in Hayle in Cornwall, It was very different from what we had grown use to in Cornwall.
The memories of, the ‘Black Out’ the sirens, air raid warnings, the drone of flying bombs, the engines cutting out and the explosions that followed will not be forgotten.
The memory of running to the Anderson Street air raid shelter, in Philpot Street, and on one occasion to the Hell Hole” Tilbury Shelter in Aldgate. These Memories that return when I see the world news of wars in other countries.
This re collection of my past would not be complete if I did not mention the St. George’s in the East “secondary modern school for boys and girls” in Cable Street, which I attended, at age eleven, in 1945-1949. that helped me to form characteristics, I can detect through-out my life see my website. abrahamwilson.co.uk
The Head Master of St Georges, Alexander Bloom practiced a new, radical form of teaching in his school, and is still studied in academic circles. See Prof. Michael Fielding’s study on Alex Bloom 1945 to 1955.
Abraham Wilson.
June 2021.