MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THIS

During the Second World War there were so many horrific raids on London by the Luftwaffe, but one particularly heavy bombing at Battersea still remains imprinted on the mind of a lovely 80-year-old lady.

It was a Sunday night, 10th September 1940, just two weeks before her planned wedding, when the young 20 year-old was at her fiancé’s parents’ house at 73 Mundella Street, preparing two rooms to be their first marital home.

Twice married Mrs Joan Bryant (formerly Woodland and nee Holman) takes up the story herself.

The raid started about 7 o’clock in the evening and it turned out to be a very bad night. As always we were in the Anderson shelter in the garden, but used to leave everything in the kitchen on a tray, ready to make tea. It looked as though we were going to spend the night in the shelter, my mother-in-law, my future husband and myself.

Suddenly, at about 11.40 pm, the action closed in.

There was a very funny noise outside, as though someone was shaking sheets, then a terrific explosion which went on for quite a long time, like a rumble, which we heard later was a mine attached to a parachute.

We couldn’t get out, as the rubble was against the doorway of the shelter.

People were shouting, "Get us out". The wardens were speaking through megaphones to stay where we were and keep quiet. Eventually we were brought out. It was pitch black and we couldn’t see a thing. Gas pipes had been fractured. Water mains had gone. Ambulances were trying to get through the debris.

(It soon became clear that six streets had been destroyed, including Thesally Square, Patmore Street, Stockdale Road, Mundella Road and Wadhurst Road where the local school was. With their houses gone, the survivors had to find fresh accommodation. Joan and her fiancée, Bert Woodland, whose marriage ceremony was fixed for two weeks time, lost not only their home and all their belongings, which was bad enough, but they lost all their expensive wedding clothes too.)

I had a friend who lived in Paradise Road in Clapham, so we decided to go round to her place; she was so shocked, but took the three of us in. We had baths, and borrowed clothes.

As luck would have it as we came away from her house, we saw a flat to let. We applied for it and the next day we paid a week’s rent on it. It was partly furnished, so it was paradise to us.

(At the same time, Joan was instructed to leave her job at a department store and engage in war work in a Munitions factory.)

I had to go up to Peter Robinson’s in Oxford Circus the next day and give in my notice.

(There was just a fortnight to go before Joan and Bert’s wedding, which had been booked at the local St Andrew’s C of E Church. But, alas, that too had been bombed. With their wedding clothes ruined and the church just a mound of rubble what were they to do?