How Britain Kept Calm and Carried On Read Online Free Page B

there was a big raid and many of the dancers left, either to go on ARP duty or just to get home to their loved ones.
    Suddenly there was a huge explosion, the building rocked around the clock, and the doors on all the emergency exits were blown open. I was ready to run off stage when I saw the pianist still
tinkling away, so I stayed too, even though there was now nobody dancing.
    Eventually the all-clear sounded and we had time to take stock. The first thing I noticed was a large switchboard for the lighting and telephone. Someone had pinned a notice to it: ‘If the
alarm bell goes once, raiders approaching; if the alarm bell goes twice, raiders in the vicinity; if the alarm bell goes three times – the bloody building has been hit.’
    Anyway, by now the pianist had joined me. I said: ‘That was a brave thing to do, carrying on like that.’
    ‘Carrying on?’ he said. ‘I couldn’t stand up for fright.’
    Frank Budgeon, Manchester

    We’d just had a bad raid and in the morning the street was littered with rubble and broken glass. A group of workmen arrived to clear up the mess. Suddenly one of them
     grabbed a sweeping brush, danced a little jig, and shouted out: ‘’itler’s blinkin’ ’ousemaid, that’s all I am.’ It made us all laugh and, for a moment,
     forget what had happened to us.
    H. R. Harvey, Southampton
    We lived in a three-storey house in Keyham, close to HM Dockyard. One night there was a particularly bad raid and all of us except my elderly grandmother – she was in her
eighties – were huddled under the staircase. Grandma sat defiantly in her chair against the passageway in a sort of alcove.
    We all sat there, listening to the awful sound of the heavy bombs, breaking glass, and incendiaries coming down like falling rain. Grandma seemed oblivious to all this, but kept complaining:
‘There’s an awful draught round my back and legs.’
    Getting no answer, she shouted to her long-suffering son: ‘Sid! Go and see if the front door’s closed.’
    Uncle Sid emerged from under the stairs and went dutifully along the passageway. He was gone an awfully long time and Grandma kept saying: ‘Where’s he got to?’
    Eventually, he reappeared. She said: ‘Well, was it open?’
    Uncle Sid said: ‘Yes, it was open all right. And if I could have found it, I’d have closed the bloody thing for you.’
    Actually, although our house hadn’t suffered a direct hit, when the raid was over we found that it was so badly damaged it was uninhabitable.
    Iris Brokenshire, Liskeard

    I remember a story from the
Lincolnshire Standard
at the time: A Post Office engineer was ordered one night to go to an anti-aircraft battery site because their
telephone was reported out of order. It was raining and a severe blackout was in force. In addition, the sentries on that particular site had a reputation for being trigger-happy. The engineer
tried to announce his approach by calling loudly at intervals: ‘Telephones! Telephones!’ Suddenly, almost at his elbow, a voice said: ‘Trying to sell ’em, mate?’
    R. M. Gale, Littlehampton
    My mother was having tea with an old friend when the sirens sounded. Bombs started dropping close by and my mother and her friend, who was a very corpulent lady, both dived
     simultaneously under the dining table. My mother’s stout friend couldn’t get her entire frame beneath the table and was left with her posterior jutting out.
    My mother laughed and said: ‘That’s a fine target for Hitler!’
    Anonymous

    I was in Forest Gate Maternity Home in 1940. I had to stay there nearly three months, as I’d been very ill through kidney trouble while I was expecting my first baby. I
had an uncanny knack of hearing the bombs coming down before anyone else, so I used to tell everybody to duck under the bedclothes. Well, I eventually had my baby boy on 9 October at 11.30 a.m.
About an hour and a half later, at dinner time, there was a raid with no warning sirens. The nurse was just