大象传媒

I met my husband when I was working at W. H. Allen's, he was a plane spotter on the roof of Allen's. They wouldn't release him. I used to study all the books with him about the planes that were coming over and when a plane was coming over they used to sound a klaxon and of course we all had to rush up, even right up to the top of Hurst Grove to go in our air raid shelters. Probably, if we were on nights we sat up there all night long or all day long until they got wise to it!

But I remember when the plane came over that bombed the little sweet shop at the County Theatre. (23rd July 1942). A little shop, right on the corner next to the theatre, Grafton Road. It swooped over Allen's and of course I was working on coil winding, that they called it, and everybody rushed out and this plane was diving down, it was diving down on the railway.

We had plenty of dance halls in Bedford and the Americans came here. There was a place up Lawrence Street where Glenn Miller did all his recording. The Co-Partners Hall in Lawrence Street, off Ford End Road. There was a dance hall there. There was the Corn Exchange, the Barracks at Kempston. Walked home in our bare feet many a Saturday night because we were so tired.

Talking about bananas, you couldn't get any bananas and if there were any about or any sweets they used to say to you, "They've got some sweets in Woolworths!" So down to Woolworths we used to have to go and stand in the queue to get a few sweets because you couldn't get sweets.

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