大象传媒

My Dad was coming home from work on the train from London and he had a new bike for me. I was very excited about it, so I was walking down the London Road towards the Railway approach to meet him off the train.

I was opposite the Whitehall Cinema when the bombs dropped - there was no panic. I stopped and waited whilst people were brought out on stretchers, as I knew my Mum was in the town and she had a habit of going to the cinema on her own. However, all you could see were grey people covered in dust and rubble. There was nothing I could do, so I carried on down to the station. As my Dad got off the train, he said the train had been machine gunned! You just didn't expect this in East Grinstead. A lot of children from school and their parents were killed in the cinema. When we got home, we found that Mum wasn't there, so we went to look for her and found her in the ARP centre in Moat Road recieving attention for a shard of glass in her hand and arm. She had been standing outside Tekoffe's waiting for a bus when the bombs hit, although she thought it was a plane that had hit the shop.

I still got my bike - a BSA with chrome handle bars. Despite all the bombings, life did carry on.

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