Alexander Rhodes

Civilians in London have been hit hard in the past week. The afternoon and night of September 7 was an astonishing one for me and most other Londoners, particularly those living in the east of the city. The Germans sent over hundreds of planes in the first wave in the afternoon and then overnight, in successive attacks, bombarded the docks on the Thames and the working class districts around them: Bermondsey, Limehouse, Rotherhithe, Beckton, Poplar, Bow, Stepney, Whitechapel and Shoreditch. I heard the crump of the explosions from my office. Enormous firestorms raged across the East End and the fire-fighters could do nothing about them.

I heard that Biggin Hill had been badly bombed over the past week, so I decided to visit and see how George Sheridan was – the pilot that I gave a lift to after he had baled out of his plane a few weeks ago. I had heard (accurately or not I didn’t know at that point) that he was still alive but that many members of his squadron had been killed. I wanted to investigate what was happening there anyway as there was not a clear picture emerging from the RAF and the government, and it seemed likely that communications had been hit by the bombardment at Biggin Hill and elsewhere within the RAF’s 11 Group, which controls the south-eastern area.

My concern that central London would be bombed has been realised and my fear now is that this is just the start of a long and exhausting bombing campaign by the enemy which will kill thousands if not millions of civilians. The first attack came on the night of August 24. Bombs fell in the City, on department stores on Oxford Street, in Bethnal Green and there was a direct hit on the north door of St Giles’ Church in Cripplegate, near the old London Wall. Only nine people were killed in the raid, and 58 injured, but a raid on Portsmouth earlier on the same day killed more than 100 people and injured many more.

I’ve been snatching opportunities to write my novel, not just at home but wherever I am: in between interviews and briefings, waiting at railway stations, on park benches and in the pub over a pint. The newspaper copy and the novel both flow effortlessly now, I think because I’ve been working so hard for so long that it’s become a completely natural function, the same as my heart beating and my ears hearing. It’s not necessarily work of great quality, but never has writing been such an instinctive act for me, which is a joy in itself.

On August 12, I immediately thought of Jane Sheridan, the spirited young WAAF who wrote to me a couple of weeks ago, when I heard the news that the Chain Home RDF station where she works had been bombed. However, I was soon told that no serious damage had been done and that there were no casualties.