大象传媒

On Wednesday, 21st August 1940 the house in which I was living ( 5, Myrtle Road, Brentwood ) was completely destroyed as a result of a German aerial torpedo landing in the back garden. Ann and I had walked home from school to have our dinner with Stella and Mum. We were sitting at the table at about 12.30 when I remember seeing something go past the window. The next thing I recall is being in complete darkness with my mouth full of dust and unable to move. The silence was uncanny. Then I heard someone crying so I called out and Ann and Mum answered. When Stella heard our voices she stopped crying. Mum soon realised that none of us seemed to be in pain although we couldn't move our limbs and Ann had water trickling down her neck. It wasn't long before we heard muffled voices.

The Heavy Rescue Team had been called out to attend the scene. My father was a member of the Team. My father called out to each of us to establish where we all were and I was able to tell him I was alright so they could get the others out first. He and his colleagues burrowed into the wreckage and one by one we were brought out into the daylight.

A first aid station had been set up in one of the sheds belonging to the garage next to the Essex Arms at the end of Myrtle road. We were taken there and had a check over and our eyes, ears, and mouth were washed out. I can still feel the sensation of my face and hair being thick with dust. Mum and Ann had been located quite close to each other but Stella was found a little further away nearer to the road and proved a little difficult to extricate from the wreckage until it was realised that her shoe strap was caught up on a coat hook. She had been blown over (or through) two internal walls from where we had been sitting to the hallway where she was found.

The crater was about 30 feet across and extended from just outside the back door to the edge of the Anderson shelter at the top of the garden. I was later told by Don Cornish that as this was the first incident in the locality the crater became a bit of an attraction so some of the lads escorted people along the gardens in Eastern Road at the back and provided boxes for them to stand on and look over the wall at the crater and the wreckage. A small fee was charged for this service and this was the start of the collection to buy a Brentwood Spitfire. ( Various other fund raising events were organised and the money for the aircraft was raised in 2 weeks)

The official incident report reads as follows:
21/8/40, 12-44 Brentwood 2- H.es 1 is 300 yards East of Railway Station on embankment, L.N.E.R. partly blocked by a tree and debris, and 1 at Myrtle Road. 4 houses demolished and 4 badly damaged. 5 slight casualties.

A few weeks later we heard that the Boy Scouts Association had decided to award me a certificate of gallantry which was later framed and presented to me by Councillor Farrow who was leader of the Brentwood Council at that time.

Dad never talked about that day or what he did and saw later in the war when he had to go to help in London and Coventry and it was many years later that the Team leader on that day, Mr Norwich told me of the look of horror on his face when they went over the railway bridge and he realised his house was no longer there.

Miraculously none of us was badly injured and only spent a short time in Warley Woods Hospital recovering from the shock. This was used as an Army hospital during the war and I was the only civilian in the ward.

I remember 2 or 3 boys from school coming to visit me and while they were there the siren went immediately followed by the sound of a plane diving. We all dived under the bed and the place shook with the blast from 2 explosions. I later heard that the target had been a petrol tanker driving past Headley Common but the bombs missed and nobody was hurt.

My mother and two sisters were in another ward so I was given a wheelchair for transport and the soldiers used to give me a cheer as I trundled myself along the ward on my way to see them.

We left hospital after about 7 days and went to stay with my grandmother in Gt Warley. My grandmother's adjoining neighbour was Mr Harvey and his family. He was a senior chemist at the Selo works which produced film for the Forces. Mr. Harvey and my father had excavated a large pit and constructed a very substantial shelter with bunk beds to accomodate Mr Harvey, his wife and 2 children, my grandmother,my aunt Maisie (who also worked at the Selo) and my great aunt Kate. Somehow my mother and we three children managed to squeeze in as well.

The house was just a flattened mass of rubble from which almost nothing was recovered. The only thing I remember being recovered was the Cossor radio which was taken back to the Civil Defence depot in Doddinghurst Road and found to be in full working order; all the valves and the glass accumulator being unharmed.

Before her marriage my mother had been in service and one of her friends had married a grocer with a shop near Longeaton and we were invited to go and live with them away from the air raids.As she could only accomodate my mother and sisters I went to stay with a family about 10 miles from them. The two boys were a little older than me and we got on very well together walking the fields and visiting the local farm where their father worked.I well remember putting together a bike from parts we managed to get from various friends and I was then able to cycle the 2 or 3 miles to the school in the local town.

On our return some 3 months later we again lived with my grandmother at Gt Warley until the Council were able to rehouse us in a recquisitioned bungalow.

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