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In the year of 1942, I was working at the R.F.D. Factory in Western Road, Brighton. Over 400 people worked there making rubber dinghies and boats. One day, I was asked to go to the office where I was told I could go home as a bomb had dropped around my area. My Mum worked at the Channel Laundry, which was then near the railway station, Aldrington Halt, where the bombs went.
I caught the No.2 bus to Westbourne Street, Hove, got out — what a mess! All the windows and roofs were off on the north side of Portland Road. This was the main shopping area. The bomb had dropped in Rutland Gardens on the south side. 2 houses went in the middle of the west side of street. I thought My God, what am I going to find? So up I went to my street towards the station. I lived then in Montgomery, No.100, it wasn’t too bad. I got to the door, opened it, Mum was home safe. I said: Mum, what’s happened, are you alright? Then I passed out. Shock. Mum said I went a funny grey colour. I was out half an hour. She told me the bomb had gone off on the north side of the railway — a bouncing bomb — causing damage to 3 houses and a builder had vanished. He'd been blown up doing the outside of one of the houses. If the bomb had fallen on the south side, it would have damaged 3 laundries and a bullet factory. Mum and the rest of the staff hid under stout wooden ironing tables which were the only shelter.

We had no warning sometimes in Brighton Hove. Planes came in at sea level, dropped their bombs and were gone. Then pips went and then the siren. We were really frontline. Still everyone got on with it. Trains and buses ran, not like today, everything stops.

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Sue Craig from MyBrightonandHove on behalf of Vi Foard and has been added to the site with her permission. Vi fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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