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This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Three Counties Action on behalf of Mary Bowler Nee Jefferies and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was playing monopoly with the Chandler family in Honey Hill Road, Queen鈥檚 Park, Bedford on a winter鈥檚 evening in 1942 when the sirens went and there was a terrific explosion and Mrs Chandler said, 鈥淕et under the stairs quickly.鈥� I remember a wooden curtain rail coming down and when the 鈥楢ll clear鈥� went I went round the corner to my home in Ouseland Road, and there was all glass on the pavement where the windows had blown out. My brother John had been in the garden with my Granddad at my home when they saw a parachute coming down, thinking it was a German pilot instead of which it was a mine which landed in the Cox鈥檚 Pits soft ground where they used to put the rubbish this side of the River Ouse and about 200 yards from where I was playing monopoly. Another mine dropped in a field the other side of the river in the same area as Grange Camp (Army) fortunately no-one was killed or injured.

I was at the Girls Modern School now Dame Alice Harper School during the war 1940-1944 and we had lessons in the morning and a School evacuated from London had lessons in the afternoon we used to go in lorries on potato lifting some afternoon and we had allotment in the playing field, of course we had to carry one gasmask.

In 1944 I left school and worked in the County Treasures Dept. Shine Hall and when the siren went we used to go down to the cells underneath the Magistrates court.

My friend鈥檚 sister used to get nylon from Cardington Camp where they made Barrage Balloons and we used to make underslips. We undid the wave from old jumpers and washed the skeins and knitted new jumpers.

On VE Day and VJ Day my friend and I went down the Embankment and danced in Russell Park. We had identity cards clothing coupons and ration books and of course ever window had to be blacked out at night when we needed lights on. My mothers鈥� iron railings out the front were taken down towards the war effort and all the signposts. My father who worked permanently nights at W.H Allens Engineering Wonks put a double bed on blocks in the back room downstairs so that my mother and I slept on the bed at the top and my two Brothers had a mattress underneath.

Bombs were also dropped on the Railway Aims and the Royal Theatre, which were near the Railway and Allens Engineering Wonks and also at Laxtons Garden Centre where someone died.

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