大象传媒

After the declaration of war, nothing seemed to happen for a long time, as least not as far as Ilford was concerned. One afternoon my father and I went out cycling to Epping Forest, and we stopped for tea in a tea garden near the Wake Arms. When we were there we saw a few planes, quite high up, then we saw some white puffs and one plane seemed to spiral downwards and disappared.

My father said quite casually, that we should go home, so we cycled the ten or twelve miles back. In was some time later that the phrase Battle of Britain was coined, and we realised that we had seen its opening.

Reproduced, with permission, by Ipswich Museum.

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