大象传媒

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I was 13 years old on the day Vauxhall was bombed and living in Farley Avenue, Luton (now called Wilsden Avenue). I had not gone to school that day because I was feeling unwell and, as mother had to go shopping, I went to stay with a friend who lived further along the road. When we heard the siren we ran to the Anderson Shelter in the back garden. As we reached the entrance of the shelter a bomb was dropped from a German aeroplane. It landed in the next garden and the blast from the bomb threw my friend and myself into the shelter. This shelter was shared by my mother鈥檚 friend and Mrs T, the next-door neighbour, and we couldn鈥檛 understand why Mrs T had not come into the shelter with her two children.

I can recall we looked out to see if she was coming, only to see her little boy being thrown over the fences from the blast of the bomb (this little boy died in hospital later that day). When the all-clear siren went, my mother鈥檚 friend went to see if Mrs T was alight, but found her and the baby dead. She had been killed as she bent to get her baby out of the pram.

My father was a Special Constable and was asked to break the terrible news to Mr T when he came home from work. He told my father that he didn鈥檛 know how he had escaped being killed at Vauxhall, only to be told of this tragedy. I was a pupil of Surrey Street School and was off school for nine months with delayed shock.

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