´óÏó´«Ã½

I lived in Dagenham, near the Robin Hood, and I was five years old when war broke out.

My family lived near the South East Technical College, which the Germans believed was a special training college. Because of this, they attempted to bomb it repeatedly through the war. Instead, they hit the group of houses at the bottom of Marlborough Road, which was only 1000 yards from where my own family lived. They did attempt to drop a landmine on it at one point!

My family was among the first in the neighbourhood to have an Anderson shelter (which were all converted to sheds afterwards!). Consequently, the neighbours used to come and share it with us. We all used to stand in the garden before going to the shelter, watching the German planes coming over.

Because they couldn’t hit the college, the German decided that they would try an early morning raid. I was at home with my mother (my eldest brother was at Oxford with his auntie) and it was about 9 o’ clock in the morning when the sirens went. We were in the back bedroom, my mother and I, and my mum looked out the window and saw a plane approaching. Naturally enough, I was looking as well and she said to me, ‘There’s something fallen off the plane.’ She realized within a few seconds that it was a bomb.

I saw this bomb and my mother grabbed me. We ran downstairs and under the staircase, which was the safest place to be during the war. Obviously, the bomb dropped but we didn’t know where it had dropped at the time.

Right opposite our house was the air raid warden’s office and they informed my mum that the bomb had dropped down where her sister had lived. What had happened is that the plane had been flying so low that the bomb was released and bounced on the school playing field, next to my aunt’s house. Then it went straight through another house before coming out the other side and hitting my aunt’s house. This was the home of my auntie Lil, and my two cousins, Lesley and Alan. Lesley was aged two and Alan was the same age as me.

No bodies were found but all three died in the bomb attack. At the inquest, my mother was asked if my aunt was the kind of woman to leave her children alone because no bodies were found but the fact was everything had been demolished by the bomb.

I think what makes this experience tragic but unique is that my mother and I actually saw the very bomb that killed her sister and my cousins.

After this incident, my father, who was based in Ashborn in Derbyshire with the Air Force, wanted to remove my mother and myself from the Dagenham area. He knew of the Proctor family in Ashborn who said that they would try to help him. He contacted the local vicar who asked if anyone could put up a family from the London area.

There was a little village not far from Ashborn called Bradley. There was a farm there called Brooke Farm. They were tenant farmers called Mr and Mrs Ford. It was a very big farm, a milk farm with 60 cows on it. It consisted of a big house with a side annexe and the big house itself wasn’t used. Mrs Ford said she would take us in, so she asked around the village for pieces of furniture to help furnish the house for us. So my dad got us to Brooke Farm and it was a beautiful place to be. It seemed enormous to us and the Fords treated us wonderfully. We ended up staying on the farm for 2 years.

The Fords had 3 children: Valerie, June and Michael. Michael was the same age as me. Michael and I became friends and did most things together, including working on the farm.

Dad being stationed nearby (he was a butcher in civvies street life) he used to enjoy lots of perks from us living on the farm. He was always getting 48 hour passes to come to the farm and get eggs, meat etc. whatever produce he could get to take back to the station’s commanding officer.

My dad had never been up in a plane before the war and he was terrified of flying. His job was to load the bombs onto the plane, Whitneys and Lancasters. He was offered a training flight and he said ‘no’ but offered the opportunity to his mate at the station. Unfortunately, the planed crashed coming in to land and killed this friend, which didn’t help me dad’s fear of flying! I did finally get my dad to fly years later, when he was 85!

Mr and Mrs Ford has never been on a train, never left Ashborn, never even bee to Derby which was about sixty miles away. They were real country people. They villages was wonderful, had its own post office and shop like most villages do. The school I went to was a one-room school with a tiny playground.

After the war, mum kept I contact with Mr and Mrs Ford by letter but we never did go back, which I felt was sad. But there wasn’t the money and London to Derbyshire was quite a distance in those days.

Later on, in 1995, I was able to take my parents back to Brooke Farm for the 50th anniversary of VE day. Unfortunately, Mr and Mrs Ford has passed away and the only member of the family left was Michael. So we spent the day looking for Michael. We knocked on a few doors, we went to the Proctor family house. The lady of the house knew the Proctor family and she invited us in. Naturally enough, Mum and Dad had a lot to talk to them about she knew a lot of people they spoke about. She told us where Michael might be.

So we went to Bradley village. When we got to his bungalow, there was nobody in but we were given instructions to find the place where Michael was working (he restored houses for a living). We found Michael and caught up on old times. We went to Mr and Mrs Ford’s graves and laid flowers on their grave. Michael had still never been out of the village by this time!

Because we were there we drove to the farm and got to the post office first. This wasn’t a post office anymore but a private house with a stable and paddocks built alongside it. We parked outside and out came the owner of the house and asked what I wanted. I explained who I was and this lady was virtually the local historian. They had recently done a village project on the war and the lady showed a collection of war-time photos that has been used for the project. Unfortunately no photos of us because we didn’t have cameras in those days.

Then we continued to Brooke Farm. It was no longer a farm: the stable and paddocks had been converted into luxury housing. However, the new inhabitants made us warmly welcome when they found out who we were. They invited us in and wanted to hear all about our experiences living in their house during the war.

Then we went up to the school. Here were also made welcome and the school had contributed to the recent project on the war. I was even shown my original class register from the time!

After we left the school, I took my dad back to the old aerodrome, at Ashborn. All that was left was the main runway; all the rest had been converted into industrial estates.

Despite all these changes, it was a wonderful experience re-visiting our war-time home. I was very lucky in spending my war years here; it has given me a love of the countryside to this day. It is only sad that this all came about through the death of my auntie and cousins.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.