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Home <> Lifestory Library <> Explore By Location <> <> <> Injured During Air Raid




  Contributor: Denis GardnerView/Add comments



Denis Gardner was born in 1926 in the Old Kent Road in London.

He went to Beresford Road Primary School {Now John Ruskin Street}, and then Southwark Central before going to Peckham Central.

He worked firstly at H.W. Sullivan's, Leo Street, Old Kent Road, from Jan.1941 to May 1944 before serving in the RAF until the end of 1947. His period of service took him to India, Bombay, Karachi, Cawnpore, Madras, Vivagapatam, and Burma, Jumchar Akyab.

After being demobbed he worked at Stanley Coach Works, Queens Road, Peckham for the next three years until 1951.

He lived at Grosvenor Terrace in Camberwell, and Whorlton Road in Peckham before emigrating to Australia.


In October 1940 {when I was 14 years of age} whilst doing a paper round, in Caulfield road Peckham, I was caught in an air raid and injured, wrote Denis Gardner.

I was taken to St Giles Hospital in Camberwell, where I became an out-patient from the 15-10 to the 19-11-40. The hospital that morning was filled with young girls who had been injured by the same stick of bombs,
which had hit the factory they worked in.

Schooling had stopped in late 1939 when evacuation of children out of London had started. The school I went to in Choumert Road, Peckham was taken over by the National Fire Service. That was pleasing to most of us, for we could spend our time in Peckham Rye, prior to the Blitz.

I still think back to the war years with great affection. Except for the bombs one was quite safe. Not like the present-day.

Denis Gardner, Brisbane, Australia, 2002
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