Morrison shelters
I was born in 1939, and in 1944 i was living in Tooting. My father was serving with HMS Vernon at a secret shore establishment near Havant, but I stayed in London with my mother. i had attended a catholic convent nursery school but it closed down when the bombing became intense. Eventually we had "doodlebugs" coming over every ten minutes so I lived for weeks in a Morrison shelter in our front room. I had to emege to go to the toilet, but otherwise I was told to stay in the cage for safety.
My father came home on leave to find his small daughter living in a cage, so he took me back to his digs in Warblington, where I remained until the end of the war.
When I returned to Tooting I remember the street party to celebrate. We had a huge bonfire in the middle of the rosd, and an effigy of Hitler was slung over the telegraph lines and then lowered onto the fire, like a modern Guy Fawkes.
When I tell people that I once lived in a cage they look at me in disbelief, but perhaps I was not the only small child in this situation, having been too young to be evacuated at the start of the war.