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This is Part 5 of 5 of Mr. Imm’s War Memories submitted by Stafford Library on his behalf.

Holidays during the war were no more than rest breaks with little opportunity to travel over long distances, especially later on when we had small children. The seaside was no place for a holiday, so alternatives had to be found. Round about June 1940, soon after the evacuation from Dunkirk and just before the Battle of Britain got started in earnest it was confirmed that Mary was pregnant. We decided to take advantage of what appeared to be a lull in the war and take a short holiday in Chester which was at that time a relatively short and easy journey on the train from Stafford. We chose Chester because we had been offered digs there by an aunt of Harry Scot, one of my colleagues in the drawing office at English Electric. At that time a few isolated air raids had begun to penetrate the country as far north as Manchester and Liverpool. Late on one moonlit evening while we were at Chester the sirens sounded and we heard anti-aircraft gunfire not all that far away. Harry’s aunt insisted that Mary should take shelter with her under the stairs while uncle and I went outdoors to see what was happening. We could see the anti aircraft shells bursting in the sky to the north of the city. It was not long before we also saw the flashes and heard the explosion of bombs coming from the same direction. The red alert lasted for only about an hour and then everything went quiet and we were able to settle down for the night.

On the morning after the air raid, news quickly spread round that a German aircraft had been shot down on the north side of the city near to an aircraft assembly factory. We were able to find out where the German plane had landed. It was only about a 20 minute walk away from where we were staying, so we decided to go and have a look. The bomber did not appear to be all that badly damaged, it had crashed into a gateway opening on to a field and it seems that the pilot had managed to escape serious injury. There was no restriction of access to enable people to see the crashed aircraft, which was being guarded by a solitary policeman. It appears that the powers that be had decided that it would be a morale booster to the public if they were able to see that enemy aircraft could be brought down by our anti-aircraft defences. There was no news of any damage being caused to the aircraft assembly factory.

When Angela was jut over a year old in July 1942 we spent a week on a farm. Travelling was no problem, it was only a short bus ride out of Stafford on the north of the Borough boundary at Redhill Farm on the right hand side of A34. We had to do our own catering with our own rations. From our point of view the holiday was a change from the normal war time routine with the opportunity to wander around the fields and for Angela to see the animals. I helped with thistle spudding and Angela was able to feed the chickens. On one afternoon Wednesday 1 July while at the farm I was taking Angela for a walk in the fields when a Mustang fighter plane flew over. It was flying at about 500 feet when quite suddenly, just after it had passed over the A34 it turned its nose down and roared into the ground. Later on in the evening I walked over to the small copse where it had crashed. All that was left to see was a huge hold in the ground with debris hanging in the trees. Branches which had been ripped off trees, mixed in with bits and pieces of the aircraft were scattered on the ground all around. After the war it became known that the Mustang was being piloted by an American airman by the name of Perrin. According to the record the plane had developed an engine problem and Perrin had deliberately taken a flight path away from the town because he realised that the plane would crash. His courage was recognised by the town of Stafford by the naming of Perrin Close as a memorial to him on the post war Silkmore Housing estate. At the time of writing in 1991 the buried remains of the Mustang and its pilot have not been recovered.

Our friend George Edwards was a keen fisherman and before the war had spent much of his spare time fishing in the River Severn at Arley, between Kidderminster and Bridgnorth. George was able to recommend to us a small hotel at Arley where he at one time had spent a holiday. In 1943 when Angela was 2 years old we followed up George’s recommendation and spent a week at Arley. We travelled by train via Wolverhampton and Kidderminster. In those days the stretch of line along the River Severn at Arley was operated by the GWR. It is now run by the Severn Valley Railway with preserved steam locomotives. When we arrived at Arley on a sunny Saturday afternoon the river was running quite low with a very slow current. The trip across the river on the rope ferry was a slow and easy ride. However, during Saturday night the level of the river rose by 14 ft, although there had been no heavy rain in or around Arley for some time. The reason for the river being in spate was that a few days previously there had been some very heavy rain in the watershed of the river in Wales. For the rest of the week the ferry was swept across the river at a smart pace. The ferryman had to keep a sharp lookout for flotsam and tree trunks which were floating downstream in the strong current.

Fortunately the weather at Arley was warm and sunny for the whole week. Black cherries grew in abundance in the area and they were ready for harvesting during our stay. On most days were able to enjoy the luxury of fresh picked fruit, a welcome off-the-ration supplement to our wartime diet.

On 8th May 1945 the war with Germany was over. VE victory celebrations were arranged overnight all over the country. Stafford was no exception. In Silkmore Lane and the Windsor Road area a group of enthusiasts rapidly organised an outdoor celebration. Amplifier equipment was obtained and set up on a home made platform cum stage on what was then open ground in the area now occupied by Lancaster Road. There were speeches, community singing, impromptu sketches, recitations and requests for anyone to ‘give us a song’. Angela who was then aged 3 years promptly mounted the platform and sang ‘You are my Sunshine’. Her singing went down very well and all the crowd joined in the chorus.

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