´óÏó´«Ã½

(This story was submitted to the People's War site by volunteer from Three Counties Action at Bedford VE/VJ's commemorations on behalf of Jim Housden and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Housden fully understands the site's terms and conditions).

I was an apprentice plumber in Bedford aged around 17 and I was working on the bandstand in Mill Meadows which was removed from St Mary’s Gardens in Bedford. I was working on the roof of the bandstand one morning when the air raid siren sounded. Shortly afterwards a German plane circled round and a bomb was dropped in the Prebend Street area — which must have fallen onto a scrap metal firm. After the explosion the metal threw up in the air so I came down faster than I went up!

I was called up on July 1st 1943 but my army duration only lasted a few months as I contracted rheumatic fever and I was discharged. I was culled up with my friend Bernard Toms and we were sent to Gibraltar Barracks in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. We were only there a short while as I was discharged in the November.

After that I couldn’t go back to plumbing so I got a temporary job for JP Simmonds a general store in Bedford on Tavistock Street where I remained until I retired in 1990. For some reason the weeks turned into years! On my first day off I met my wife Brenda, I chatted to her in Mill Meadows by the cinema and we’ve been married very happily for 57 years.

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