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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Vinod Ghadiali of Leicestershire Library Services and Stuart Wilcox from Age Concern, Wigston on behalf of Marie Bispham , and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

In 1941, I joined the Army and served until 1945 when I was demobbed. I went to South Wigston Barracks to train for 8 weeks as a tailoress for officers. Before the war, I had been a tailoress apprentice with Henry Leek on London Road in Leicester for 7 years.

I was moved from South Wigston to Didcot for two and a half years but later came back to 319, London Road in Stoneygate ( near Knighton Road ), where we made uniforms for officers. While at London Road, I was nearly killed by an aeroplane. I went down Allendale Road to the chemist’s for some Anadin and I leaned my motor bike up outside. A plane came down through the corner house on Stoneygate Road and I came out of the chemist’s to find a human leg by the back wheel of my bike. I later found out that it had belonged to the pilot who had been killed in the crash – the plane was from Stoughton Aerodrome.

Oadby was a little village then – there was a café called the Teapot on the old Oadby Road. I got pinched for doing 50 m.p.h. on my B.S.A. 250 motorbike. I was discharged in November and 4 years later, I broke my spine in 3 places. However, I have lived to 88 to tell the tale.

Marie Bispham
27th March 2005

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