大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War web site by Karen Elmes at the Building Exploratory on behalf of Melody Brigden and has been added to the site with her permission. She fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Just before the the Blitz hit London there were battles between British and German planes above Melody鈥檚 bungalow in Chelmsford. On one occasion they dropped 22 bombs in the field at the bottom of their 100-foot garden. When the bombs dropped Melody was terrified and was made more so because she saw her mother was also frightened. They took shelter in the bathroom and Melody鈥檚 mother watched the bombs falling 鈥� when they went off she also ran into the bathroom.

The bombing left them in shock and they decided to get away for a few days. They went to stay with Melody鈥檚 aunt who lived in Woolwich. However they were unaware that they were heading for even more danger as they arrived in London for the first night of the Blitz when the Woolwich Arsenal was bombed:

鈥淢y aunt hadn鈥檛 got a shelter at the time, but next door but one was a friend of hers and they had an Anderson shelter in the garden. My sister and I went with my aunt鈥檚 friend down into the Anderson but my sister wouldn鈥檛 come later on in the evening, she stopped with my mother and father in the house. I felt as though everything was coming down all round, so much noise and rattling and one thing and another. I was quite surprised when I came out to see all the houses around as usual. There might have been a bit of damage done to them, but I鈥檇 thought that everything was coming down.鈥�

Melody describes their journey back to Chelmsford:

鈥淲e came home the second day, we had to catch the Woolwich ferry, but of course they bombed the docks you see and there was very thick black smoke coming up. When we got to the other side of the ferry we had to get a bus to Manor Park and the shelters, you could see all the holes 鈥� I suppose where they were machine gunned. And there was everybody trying to get away 鈥� get away from that area, with prams loaded up with luggage and children and all the rest of it. We got about half way between the ferry and Manor Park and we managed to get a bus 101 and then we got the coach home. All the way we had this very big dense black smoke coming up from the docks and I think it was still there the next morning.鈥�

Back in Chelmsford Melody was never far from the bombs as the town was a target because it had 4 factories (her father worked at Marconi doing wireless for ships). In the cemetery there is a big communal grave where the girls who were killed in the Hoffman鈥檚 factory bomb were buried. Raids were became milder until the buzz bombs came over. There was no direct hit on Melody鈥檚 road but the town was bombed.

Melody鈥檚 family had Morrison shelters in their bedrooms, Melody felt very odd sleeping in hers, it was like some kind of alien object. Melody remembers how some people used to decorate them to make them look nice. The blackout frame for the kitchen was decorated with pictures. If the ARP wardens saw a ghost of a light they told them off, and her dad 鈥渨ent off pop鈥�.

Melody enjoyed talking about the war, and said people were different during the war, they were friendlier. Somehow it changed how people related to one another.

This story was recorded by the Building Exploratory as part of a World War Two reminiscence project called Memory Blitz. To find out more please go to ^{About links}

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