In Chislehurst Caves, every fourth adult is given an oil lantern to light the way through miles of underground chalk and flint. It’s a surprising touch in a world tormented by health and safety: in the New Statesman kitchen, the toaster, “a fire hazard”, has just been removed. For 87-year-old Jill Cheeseman, the smell of paraffin and sedimentary rock is exactly the same now as it was during the Second World War, when she lived down here with 15,000 others, every night for three years, and 24 hours a day for ten weeks in the Blitz.
Lord Haw-Haw, in his radio broadcasts, once warned that the Germans “knew about all the rats living under the ground in Kent” and were coming to get them – but they never did. A bomb fell directly on top of the caves, but nobody heard it. Jill’s was one of the first families to move in from their home in Mosslea Road, Bromley – six children and their mother, on a double mattress with candles. Their father stayed in the family Anderson shelter, but would bring stew in a black cauldron, balanced on his bike, and eat with them at night time. His wife got pregnant twice during the cave years, which baffles Jill. Her brother David was brought down at just a few days old; Raymond likewise, though he only lived for four months.
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