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15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

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One Summer Night

by stbenedictbiscop

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Contributed by听
stbenedictbiscop
People in story:听
Mr Norman Freeman
Location of story:听
South London
Background to story:听
Royal Air Force
Article ID:听
A4498707
Contributed on:听
20 July 2005

One summer night in 1941,I was coming home from choir practice. At that time there was an air raid where I lived south of London almost every night .In fact we had air raids on 64 consecutive nights. On the 65th night no jerries appeared but we were unable to sleep because it was so quiet. We were used to the drone of Germans bombers passing over and going home much faster then they came because they had no heavy load aboard having deposited on London or on some other city. We were used to hearing bombs on their way down; we heard a sound at first like far of whistle gradually becoming louder before the crump of the explosion. It happened so often that we did not even take shelter.
However, on the night above I heard one whistling, the whistling became and louder-and louder -and louder until I become more than a bit scared. Finally it came so close it sounded just like an express train rushing by the railway station platform. This time I was convinced my name was on it and I fell to the ground face downward and tried to claw my way into the safety of the ground. I remember to this day what I said. It began, 鈥淥ur father....鈥
It went off nearby leaving a huge crater in a farmer鈥檚 field. I had landed on the opposite side of the road to a public house called 鈥楾he Sun鈥. (We kids said we lived on the longest street in the world because it had The Sun at one end and The Half Moon at the other.)
I picked myself up and shook off the leaves from a lime tree and shards of broken glass from the pub and ran home.
Roger Bannister is credited with running the first four-minute mile.
He didn鈥檛 鈥 I did.
P.S Next morning I went to look at the crater, which was big enough to bury a bus. There was a black and white cow in the bottom and several locals were debating the best way to help her out.

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