Joyce Holgate Demille

Growing Up in 1940s War-torn England Joyce Holgate Demille

Not yet eighteen years of age, I was allowed to leave the office early before the nightly bombing began in earnest. Walking down the street on my way to the railway station, suddenly I found myself high up on a spiked metal fence outside an office building. An angry air-raid warden yelled at me, "What are you doing climbing up there when an air raid is in progress? Why aren't you in that shelter on the other side of the street under that eh, eh . . . " Building, he was about to say, when he saw that it was no longer there, just a huge cavity where the large office building with the shelter in the basement had been. Many workers were killed there. Then he turned his attention back to me as I was clamoring to be helped down. "Why are you up there" he exclaimed in irritation. Mad as hell, I asked him how did he think I got up there by myself, hurting as I was and afraid I would soon be undressed, the iron spike of the fence having pierced the collar of my coat, and it was a long fall to the pavement. Needless, to say I was as surprised as he was. How did I get there then?