Blitz Kids Read Free

coming. Ever since the rise of the Nazis in Germany, many had been predicting war. After the Munich crisis of 1938 it had seemed that the world was balanced on the edge of a precipice. Then, on 1 September 1939, Hitler’s Germany invaded Poland and the world took a step into the unknown. For the next two days the people of Britain were on tenterhooks, knowing that war might be declared at any moment. Parents became withdrawn, veterans of the Great War grew quiet, fearful that their own sons might be sucked into a war every bit as horrible as the one they had known. For all the chatter about the likelihood of war, there was a dreadful silence about what it might mean.
    For fifteen year olds Peter Richards and John Cotter, there was no reason why the declaration of war should interrupt their routine. 3 September was a Sunday and they would do what they always did: gofor a cycle ride. The two boys had been firm friends since attending grammar school in Kingsbury, north London, where they had ‘palled up’ and stayed together.
    After leaving school, the two boys had gone their separate ways, but kept in touch and met regularly. In February 1939 Peter and his family had moved to Camden Town and he found employment as a boy messenger with the Royal Mail, in central London. His family was relatively poor and, as such, every penny he earned – of his twelve shillings and sixpence weekly wage – was precious. On 1 September, with war looming, he had gone to the cinema to watch the latest Will Hay comedy. When told there was to be blackout that night he was unconcerned as he did not really believe there would be a war. He was convinced by newspaper articles claiming it would be averted. Like so many others, he had seen the film of the H. G. Wells novel The Shape of Things to Come , which fixed in his mind the vision of a London destroyed by war. Surely no one would risk such horrors?
    Despite his seeming nonchalance, Peter Richards was a child of his time. Born in May 1924, for him the deprivations of the 1930s had inspired a fascination with politics that stayed with him all his life. He had watched the rise of fascism at home and abroad. And having followed the Spanish Civil War with interest, he was well aware of the horrors of modern warfare. The conflict drew him towards left wing politics:
    I wasn’t a convinced ‘Labour’ person at first, but the thing that shook me was the Munich Crisis. Then at fourteen I can remember going out for a walk with a friend of mine. Just by chance we went to a Communist Party meeting that was being held in a school. The main speaker was Wal Hannington, a well-known leader. He was the first person who put the idea into my head that the government wasn’t doing the right thing. So I began to get interested in government policies.
    His mate John Cotter was no less a product of the same times. He lived in Edgware in north-west London, having moved around during the late 1920s and early 1930s as his father struggled financially in the Depression. The two boys had become friends despite their political differences:

    We were at opposite ends of the political spectrum. Peter was a communist and I was thinking of joining the young fascists. I wasn’t anti-Jewish, because I lived in a Jewish area. I was brought up reading the Daily Mail. It said that Mussolini ran the trains on time and everything worked well. They were also pro-Franco, which I was. On the way home from school I used to have fights with other boys about it: they’d be supporting the republicans, I supported the nationalists. So Peter would take me to meetings held by pro-Republican factions and I would sit there fuming. I was pro-Mussolini but I wasn’t pro-German.
    With youthful disdain for the lofty affairs of State the boys, whose political views seemingly mirrored the conflict that was about tear Europe apart, set out on their regular Sunday morning cycle ride, heading towards St Albans. As Peter later recalled: ‘We were