Were you, or someone you know, living in London during WWII?

Not London but my parents were small children further north during the war. My dad lived in Sheffield and remembers seeing the sky red with flames from bombing and the stench of acrid smoke, and my mum remembers seeing the same redness over Liverpool from her home in Chester. She also remembers going to a medical appointment in Liverpool the morning after a raid and her grandad having to lift her over the thick fire hoses that were still being used to put out smouldering buildings around Rodney Street.

My mum had a friend in later years who'd been an ambulance driver in Liverpool during the war. She sometimes saw naked bodies hanging from trees as a result of particularly bad blasts. The friend never really got over it despite becoming a music teacher after the war, which is how my mother knew her.

My friend's grandmother had an Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden.

Whenever there was a bombing raid, she would stand at the back door and send her eldest daughter to run down the garden to the shelter. When she made it to the shelter, she would send the next one, and so on until she ran down herself carrying the baby.

My friend's mum remembers running on her own, scared, to her older siblings (she was the third child) and only found out later that her mum did this because she thought that if a bomb did fall she would only lose one child.

What a thought process to have to go through.

Yes, I think that’s right about the two types of shelter.

OP - when the museums reopen, think about a trip to the Imperial War Museum. They’ve always got a lot of interesting stuff about the home front. Have you seen Foyle’s War (it’s always on a repeats channel somewhere)?

I think the chicken wire round a table air raid shelter was called a Morrison shelter and we're considered a reasonable alternative to the Anderson

So, I pretty much I'm bored of social media. It's full of shit.
I've read many posts on here re social media upset, "they didn't 'like or comment on my post.
Replies, I find, are more often that not, 'why would you care what people on social media think, Etc.
But, for me personally, it's not just these people! My Facebook, is full of family and long term friends as well as friends from the past who are no longer friends. Also, the ex friends that it would be very telling/confrontational if you deleted them.
My point is that social media, can very much be used as a weapon and it's hard to ignore. No matter how little you 'should' care.
Is it just me?

My DDad was a baby living with his mum in east London during WWII. I know that they didn't have an air raid shelter so they had chicken wire round the kitchen table. A bomb landed on the house next door and their ceiling came down. His mum was hurt and had head injuries (I don't think she fully recovered).

One of my other relatives was situated in London during the war and was in the ATS. I'm not sure what she did exactly. I did hear a story about the little sister going awol during a raid because she'd gone rushing out to look for the cat and everyone was worried sick.

One of his friends in later life was a child living near Sheffield at the time. He said that he and his friends would go up to a hill in the countryside nearby and watch Sheffield being bombed. He said the whole place was lit up by it. Must have been horrific for kids to see.

Sorry I misspelled Sloane.

My DH was born in London in 1942. His Dad was in the army fighting in Italy and North Africa. During bombing raids his Mother had to shelter with him in the Sloan Square underground station. They were ultimately evacuated to "rest centers" and to Stockport and then Leeds. I honestly can't imagine how tough her life must have been.

By the end of the war she had four children and they were housed in a huge old house near Crystal Palace that had multiple families. They then had council housing where DH's parents lived with the family and then for the rest of their lives.

MIL lived in Pimlico during the war. Bombed out twice and evacuated twice, eventually coming back to help her mother with a new baby. She stayed in touch with the family she lived with for many years.

My aunt did her nursing training at St Stephens in Fulham and was there when it was bombed. They were then moved to a hospital (Joyce Green?) before France, where she was one of the first nurses to arrive after D Day.

My grandmother left rural - SUPER RURAL - south-west Scotland to train as as a nurse in London in 1936, and lived there until 1942.

I often wish I had asked her more about her life(I think she was a bit of a party girl!).

My DM was 11 when war broke out. She lived in south London . Lots of teachers went off to war, and school wasn't great.
She left school and started working fulltime at the telegram office in central London. She told us of the boxes and boxes of telegrams that they dealt with that were being sent to tell families someone had been killed in action. At the age of 14 she travelled to work by train with her tin hat on and with her gasmask handy.

You should read the Cazalet chronicles for a middle class perspective of life in the war, they're not all set in London but big chunks are. The author (Elizabeth Jane Howard) was in her 20s during the war, so the detail about meals, clothing etc is all accurate.

I wrongly remembered that it was set in London, but Mrs Miniver gives a very moving description of a woman’s experience during WW2.

My grandparents (now deceased) were living in East London in WW2. I heard all sorts of stories from them, I always loved hearing about it. But the overall impression is that is wasn't the jolly old time of pulling together and having fun that you tend to hear about or see on TV, it was a terrifying and stressful time that went on relentlessly for years. Grandad in the trenches, cold, wet, hungry, terrified, homesick, and grandma at home, no idea if her new husband was still alive, terrified of planes and bombs appearing at any minute, both of them continually grieving for friends and family regularly lost along the way. They lived a good life afterwards and were always cheery but now I'm older I have no idea how they coped with such prolonged trauma.

*Nella Last, not Lady

Sounds like you might love to read Nella Lady’s war diaries, which are the real diaries kept by a woman in Barrow in Furness during WW2. They are absolutely fascinating, a real insight into domestic life during the war.

That’s so interesting Hunting.
I didn’t realise POW’s were still in camps that long after the war.

A now late aunt lived off the Tottenham court road during ww2.
She used to make us roar when telling us stories of waiting for her husband and all the other women giving her daggers. What she meant was she somehow was standing where all the prostitutes used to ply their trade and didn't like strange women on their patch.
Another story -which must have been terrifying was when she had her son during the war and was pushing him in the pram. Somehow an enemy plane came overhead and started machine gunning, aiming for her. She said she just ran with the pram into the nearest shop but could hear bullets hitting the pavement behind her. It always makes me wonder how people that had terrible things like this happen just got on with life, happy to be alive. Yet today people scream that they have ptsd for the most trivial of things.

My mother was born in 1930 and lived in Wimbledon - she was evacuated to Yeovil along with her mother and sister (father was in the RAF). She has pretty fond memories of the time they spent living on a farm, even though worried about her father.

After the war they ended up in Norwich, where there was a German prisoner of war camp. My mother married a German from the camp in 1952, who was relieved to have been captured and to be allowed to stay in the UK. Her family were ok with it - his were not and never forgave him.