Daily archives: August 1, 2025

By Geoffrey Kingscott I was only three years old when the war started, and so have no pre-war memories at all. My parents often recalled the fear of gas attacks which everyone had, so the day after war was declared my father picked all the pears from the large pear tree at the back of the house. My earliest memory is of standing at the front gate of the house watching a bricklayer laying the lower courses of what became the street air-raid shelter.  Another early memory is seeing workmen using an oxy-acetylene torch (an item of great wonder) to remove the railings from the front fence of Mrs Powdrill’s house (no. 17 Shaftesbury Avenue). We shared with four other families to have our own air-raid shelter, built in our garden. I cannot remember it being built. I have one memory of being picked up out of bed by my father to be taken down to the shelter, and another of looking down from the top bunk. The grown-ups were talking in low voices, and I think there was an electric fire with one bar, so there must have been electricity. I recall a snatch of adults’ conversation outside the […]