Defending Sheerness
Pre-memory: May 1940, my mother, heavily pregnant, is both startled and frightened by the wartime bomb alarm sirens. The result: I am delivered into the world, slightly prematurely, on top of our deal wood dining table at No.1 Victoria Street, in Sheerness, Isle of Sheppey, Kent. The Doctor told Mum not to hold out too much hope for me! What did he know? I'm now a healthy eighty-three year-old!
Fast forward now exactly four years and three weeks and Mum is set to give birth to my brother Dereck. My Dad decides to get me out of the way by taking me to work with him. Dad is a wartime Special Constable but his day job is Security Officer/caretaker at the Cooperative Wholesale Society, Wheatsheaf Hall buildings in Sheerness High Street. There, in the topmost attic with access to a flat roof, the authorities had installed a command post complete with a rifle, night vision binoculars and hand cranked telephone. Dad's duty was to study the night sky for incoming enemy planes, which he could identify by their silhouettes, and pass the information on to the main defence headquarters. I spent most of the rest of the war in that Co-op building, even sleeping overnight, with the luxury of a paraffin stove, not available at home, when necessary.
The most exciting time was when on just one occasion, we witnessed an aerial dog fight over Sheerness Dockyard. I remember one plane going down and its occupant clearly lit by searchlight, slowly coming down by parachute: ours or the enemy, I'll never know. However I still remember him and hope that he made it!
