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That's patreon.com slash we have ways. Hello and welcome to a new series of family stories, the podcast written by you, our listeners.

This week's family stories take us from schoolboy japes in southeast London to a Nazi vendetta against a fleet of Buckinghamshire Ducks, to a dramatic

escape from Hong Kong to Bombay.

This week we're starting with the story from Nigel Jackson.

My dad was born in 1935 and lived with his parents and older sister Sylvia.

His mother and father decided that their children wouldn't be evacuated during the

Blitz so my dad spent the whole of the Second World War in southeast London. As they lived,

just south of the Mill War Docks in Peckham, bombers that undershot their target would hit

his neighbourhood. It was one of the most bombed areas of London during the war. My dad's life as a boy was exciting,

and he had a lot of freedom to explore.

After a bombing raid, he and his mates

would go out with metal dustbin lids on their heads

to see what they could find, and to collect shrapnel.

They often found incendiary bombs,

putting them out where necessary,

and would climb bombed out buildings until they reached the roof.

It's quite amazing that they got through the war, relatively unscathed, and I do wonder what my grandparents were thinking.

I want to recount a particular story where Dad witnessed a now infamous incident involving the Luftwaffe first hand.

Just after 12 o'clock on the 20th of January

...