大象传媒

(This story has been submitted to the People's War site by the People's War team on behalf of Mrs Dickens and the Rushden Historical Society. She gives her permission for the story to appear).

Sitting in the classroom in the first year of juniors at Alfred Street School aged 7 I believe the lesson was sums. I remember looking up after hearing a swishing noise and seeing out of the window a large torpedo shaped object coming towards the school.

At this moment our teacher whose name I cannot remember shouted everybody down on the floor. I was sitting near the internal wall. I flung myself in between the desks and the wall, no sooner had I done this there was a terrific explosion and the whole building seemed to rock, then there was an uncanny silence.

After a few moments I started to peep round the desk and I was amazed to see all the books, paper and pencils still in place on most of the desks. I do not think myself and my class mates realised what had happened.

Our teacher told us to get up from the floor and when we did we could see a big crack down the wall dividing us from the next classroom. We did not know until much later that was the area the bomb had penetrated.

Soon we had our outdoor coats with us but I cannot remember going to the cloakroom to collect them. All I recall is sitting in the shelter crying because I had lost my gloves and I thought my mother would be cross with me. Another point about the while situation was there seemed to be no panic at all from the teachers to the youngest pupils.

I did not know then that my mother had been told the school had been bombed. She jumped on her bike and raced down to the school to be met with a scene of devastation as not only had the school been hit but also Caves factory on the other side of the road from the school had received a direct hit. The ARP wardens at the scene told her no one was allowed past but being my mother she did not let this stop her and managed to find a way into the playground and find the shelter I was in also I think she managed to find some of the children who lived near to us and took us all home

One of my friends was Pat Woodhams, her parents kept the shop on the corner of Rose Avenue, when we got to the shop we were all given an orange which was a real treat as that sort of thing was in very short supply.

My father was in the civil defence and he was involved in the rescue of the injured and in the recovery of bodies in both the school and the factory, all the time not knowing if I was safe or not. We learnt the full horror of the bombing of Rushden when he eventually arrived home later that day.

IT IS A DAY I WILL NEVER FORGET IT IS AS CLEAR AS IT WAS 60 YEARS AGO.

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