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I remember the 24th of May 1943. I was attending Victoria Road County Primary School in the infant’s school. That September I was supposed to be moving up to the junior school just up the road. The junior school was right next to Ashford train station, which was targeted that day in what we called a German ‘hit-and-run’ attack. The Germans came over and were dropping bombs all over Ashford, and at school we were all sent down to the shelters. The junior school next to the station took a direct hit and was completely demolished. Despite that, and the fact that we at the infant school were just down the road, not a single child was killed that day, having all been put safely into our special school bunkers. Afterwards the schools were merged together, so I never did get to move up to the bigger school! After the bombing we were all just sent home, and as we walked back we could see the smoke from the bombing across the town. It was very frightening, there was smoke everywhere. A big garage called Haywards on New Street was severely damaged, as was a bakery we used to go to called Snashalls. We didn’t actually go into the town but could see the devastation there. I later found out that my father had been at work that day, he had been repairing steam engines on the railway works at Ashford. The works had taken a number of direct hits and in the blast he lost his false teeth and glasses, but was otherwise unhurt!

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by James Barton from Westree Learning Centre and has been added to the website on behalf of John Sweetman with his/her permission and they fully understand the site’s terms and conditions.

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