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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Simon Harris and has been added to the website on behalf of Terence Chedgey with his permission and they fully understand the site's terms and conditions.

In 1940 I was at junior school in Ashford by the railway station one afternoon when there came a very loud screaming sound followed by several loud explosions which rattled all the windows in the school. The first bombs had fallen on Ashford and the nearby railway was hit.

It was not long until the air-raid shelters were built at the far end of the school playground. To us kids this was, of course, very exciting and we tried to help during our break times — by getting in the way! They were built just in time and we soon found that many of our school hours would be spent in them because the Battle of Britain had begun. My section of the school was for boys only and with boys being boys we would wait until the teacher’s attention was distracted before taking a crafty look out of the shelter to see what was happening in the skies above.

There were planes high in the sky, machine gun fire was going on and white streaks came from the rear of the planes as they dived during the dogfights which seemed to last for hours. It was all very exciting for a young boy to watch!

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