大象传媒

This is a contribution by Brian Buss at Horley Local History Society

It was a brilliant moonlight night and a raid was on. At 14 years of age I always prefered to be outside assisting my father to firewatch after the alarm had sounded though what I would have done if the Dorking Halls we were guarding had been set alight I hadn't a clue as it was full to the ceiling with bails of army uniforms.

Although my father gave in to my wish to be with him he insisted that I wear a firewatcher's helmet. This was a different shape to the normal military helmet in that it had a much larger rim and higher crown. If I turned my head suddenly when wearing it, the helmet virtually stood still while I could face another way!

At one point during the raid there appeared to be no enemy activity so I strolled across the main road to view the still photos in the moonlight advertising next week's films in the windows of the Embassy cinema opposite. Having done this in perfect quietness I returned and had just reached the middle of the road when all hell broke loose.It sounded as if bomb after bomb was dropping right beside me. Before the sound of the first ceased I had hit the ground spreadeagled. As the rim of my helmet hit the road it left my head and rolled away as the night returned once more to be full of complete silence. The only noise I could hear was metallic as my helmet continued to roll away on its rim. When it reached the traffic lights about 50 feet away it promptly turned right and rolled for what must have been another 50 feet down the slope of the old London Road until it finally decided to wobble and became unstable and dropped to the ground after making even more wobbling noises until all was quiet once again as the helmets' rim settled on the road.

I laid there for some minutes laughing my head off in the middle of the road during the silence of the night waiting until I decided to arise and find my helmet.

Later I found the reason for my taking such a pose was the local Bofors ack-ack guns firing off a few rounds!

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