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This story was submitted to the website by Maddy Rhodes a volunteer with Radio Suffolk on behalf of Mr. Tubb and has been added to the site with his permission.
He fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

During the war I lived Palmerston Road in Ipswich and I went to St. Helen’s Primary
School. There was a lot of bombing around that area because of the nearby docks. My dad was an Air Raid Warden. His main concern was putting out incendiary bombs.

St. Helen’s school was closed because of the constant bombing. The teachers came to our houses . The children from Palmerston Road came to our house and we had our lessons in our front room.
St. Helen’s school was altered to include reinforced concrete rooms under the arches on the ground floor. This gave more protection. After the building was reinforced
the school opened again for lessons.

At home we used the cellar of our house during raids. We didn’t have an Anderson Shelter. Our cellar had double walls so it was very safe. We sat on the cellar steps with candles. We had three ways of escaping from the cellar — we could use the stairs, we could use the coal chute or we could go through the skylight into the front garden.

One day the Germans bombed McNamara’s garage at the end of the road and their tyre dump went up in flames. The smoke was awful.

I can remember a landmine landing in Cemetery Road. Fortunately only part of it exploded. The whole area was evacuated and another explosion took place but most of the mine was removed without further explosion. It could have caused a lot of damage to the whole town if it had gone up.

I remember the night a bouncing bomb bounced along Myrtle Road. That was a terrible night.

There was a good neighbourhood spirit during the war. We knew all the families in our road and if anyone needed help everyone was willing to lend a hand.

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