The Fire Watch

This story was submitted by Chris Foord of the Greenwich Heritage Centre on behalf of James Liddle

I lived on Majendie Road during the war and my father was in charge of the fire watch roster. We all had to take our turn fire watching because in Sept 1940 they tried to set London alight with incendiary bombs. At one time they were rolling down Griffin Road, Plumstead, like sticks of rock! After that we had the air raids and the shrapnel came down. AA guns used to come around the streets firing at the enemy aircraft and you could just hear the 'ping ping ping' of the shrapnel coming down. We survived the bombing. One afternoon, my father, Kitty's father and myself, were just by the air raid shelter in the garden when a German plane crashed into the next road.

At the end of Majendie Road, adjacent to Griffin Rd, they built great big concrete pillars to stop enemy tanks in case we got invaded.

'WW2 People's War is an online archive of wartime memories contributed by members of the public and gathered by the BBC. The archive can be found at bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar'