大象传媒

One night in February 1941 my sister and I were asleep at our home in Preston Avenue (which incidentally was named after my Grandfather George Preston, who was a Justice of the Peace)in Alfreton. At about one o clock in the morning we were awakened by the noise of aircraft overhead which we later realised was, in fact, enemy aircraft. We looked up at the ceiling and noticed a small crack had appeared, we shouted for my father who came in and realised that an incendiary bomb was lodged in the roof. Our nextdoor neighbour Mrs Sweeting had heard the noise and came round to find out what had happened, when she realised what had happened, she very kindly asked my mother, my two sisters and myself round to her house where she made us a lovely cup of cocoa. I can still remember how nice that cup of cocoa tasted but I did not realise the seriousness or danger that we were in. My father and my brother stayed behind and my brother filled a bucket with water whilst my father threw jugs of water onto the roof by leaning out of the bedroom window. It as not until later that we realised how lucky we were as a house across the road from us was completely burnt down. Further down our street, a man was sitting in his front room died with shock when a bomb went through his roof. We learned afterwards that the aircraft had followed the lights given off by the coalbox on a locomotive and when it went under the bridge and no lights could be seen the aircraft bomber jetisonned its load thinking it was an important target which had extinguished lights on hearing enemy aircraft. And this was the only time we had any first hand experience of the bombing during the war. Some years later my brother was digging the back garden and came across the tail fin of a WW2 bomb.

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