I was firewatching in town when I was 15. The firm I was with in Womanby Street made a condition whatever your age you had to firewatch. I was scared stiff I will tell you straight. Not of the air raids coming over, the place was alive with rats. You used to have to stay the nights and some nights your opposite number didn't turn up and you were there on your own. You would hear them moving stuff around I swear.
I worked for a firm called Brewer Brothers; it was electrical engineering like. It is now a club up there, it is you know the horse and groom, it is next door to that. My pal who was an apprentice with me. I have often said we should go there because we wouldn't believe it- there used to be laths up there and drilling machines and all that. At the top of Womanby Street- it is now Blacks, that was a miniature funfair during the war. We had a little dodgems up the end there. At 11 or 10 o clock you would hear God save the king from the fun fare- it was the same with cinema's you would get up out of you seat for the god save the king. When I heard that everything would go dead quiet accept for the blasted rats moving things about.