大象传媒

This is Fred Fright's story as told to Kathleen Pounder. The author is aware of the implications of adding his story to the website.

One time we had three bombs dropped, one evening at the back of Minster, two on the North side and one on the South side of the Railway line. The first one fell in the orchard at the back of Bucks field, it鈥檚 a council estate now, another one just missed the railway line and went in to the woods, it was known as the Drove but now it鈥檚 called Rochester Lane, the last one went in the Marshes just off the Railway line. We think the pilot was just getting rid of his load before he got back home, it put the wind up us, and although no one was hurt it would have been a different story if they had landed in the high street!

Because we lived near Manston air field we had to carry identity cards for the buses, there were barriers on the entrance perimeters, the buses had to stop and the Military Police came on to check our I.D. cards.

I remember at school we had to learn how to use our gas masks, the teacher would give us all a piece of paper which we put over the grill, we had to breathe in so that the paper would stick to the front of the mask and then breathe out to release it, that鈥檚 how our masks were tested.

We got used to war and I remember cheering if ever we saw a plane shot down, we never gave a thought to the poor soul inside, as youngsters we just thought of it as a fact of life. We never realised that we could have been invaded or bombed any minute, I often wonder how my parents coped with the worry and how they managed to carry on with their day to day lives.

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