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"Yes it was a Sunday, September the third, and news came over the radio about 11am to say that we were at war with Germany. And within minutes the air raid siren sounded and everybody knew what to do, either to stay indoors or if they had an air raid shelter, to go into the air raid shelter until the all clear was sounded. It was a false alarm, because it was three of our planes somewhere in the south east of England, and subsequently the all clear was sounded, and everything sort of changed, people were prepared and knew what to do et cetera. There was a lull, I think, if I remember correctly, very few sirens were sounded after that for a period of time going up to the Christmas of that year. I was living in Hayes, Middlesex. I stayed there until the first bomb that fell locally, which was some considerable time after that, and we lost all our windows and things like that, and we were advised to go find relatives to stay with, while the damage was repaired. It was either the end of August, or the beginning of September, it was more or less the end of summer [that I experienced that first bomb] and it was a frightening experience. Well I seemed to think it was more like an express train rushing, how it rushed through a station. And that’s how it sounded, then a terrific explosion, which culminated in people losing their windows and everything like that. We had an Anderson shelter in the garden, we were in that. It felt as though it lifted — the bomb actually was dropped, oh, less than a quarter of mile from where we were living — and it closed the main road and everything like that. I can’t remember if, I don’t think anyone was killed, I think a few people were injured by flying glass and that sort of thing. Fortunately it fell in the middle of a main road. I think people must have been in their shelters already. The HMV factory — or EMI as it is called now — was there, and they were on war work and that sort of thing, but we were sort of north of the Hayes town itself, sort of country area, but there were one or two places close by that were doing war work of a secret nature, but there wasn’t a lot of bombing round there."

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