Document six
Life in the shelters
During the war, my family and I lived in Savoy Road, Dartford, and as we had no Air Raid shelter in our garden, we had to share with our aunt and family down the road from us. Now you can imagine what it was like in an Anderson shelter with Mum and Aunt plus at least eight or nine children at varying ages from one year up to 14 years. There were gnat bites galore, and the girls screaming at spiders seen by candlelight, and Mum with her magic knob of soda for the gnat bites.
I was eight years of age at the time and can remember early one morning we all heard the familiar sound of a Flying Bomb or 'Doodlebug' as they were known. We all held our breath and waited for the 'Bang'. When it came, it was as if some-one had dropped a ton of bricks on our shelter, but fortunately for us, it was part of the blast from the V1 dropping onto the sewage farm at the end of what is now called Sandpit Lane. I can remember going to see all the damage it had caused, and seeing all the windows blown out of the houses and flats on that end of Burnham Road. I also remember that the stink was horrible and lumps of concrete blown out of the sewage beds as big as buses!
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF R. V. HOLLAND (DARTFORD)