大象传媒

My father was working for The Ford Motor co. in Dageham as a foundry worker on reserved occupation. On the first night of the blitz all workers were warned to stay in the factory because of the bombing but my father determined he needed to go home to be with my mother. He began to cycle home from Dagenham to East Ham, a journey of 6-7 miles through the worst of the bombing with explosions and fires all around. He was sheltering in shop doorways and bus shelters ( he always laughs at this point at the ludicrous nature of this action because they wouldn't have saved him).When he reached East Ham High Street he was informed by a warden that the road was closed as an aircraft had crashed on the Woolworths store opposite East Ham station entrance. This meant he had to go down a side street and carry his bicycle over a foot bridge across the railway line. When he reached the other side he could not re-mount his bike as, in his words "my legs had turned to jelly". He managed to push his bike home to Browning road only to find that his house had taken a direct hit. He then saw a figure approaching who turned out to be his brother who earlier that day had fetched my mother from the house so they could share the family shelter. My father is now 90 and this small story took me by surprise as it is really the first time he has spoken of the war in a serous fashion. When he spoke of peaceful poeple suddenly experiencing the horror of a full scale bomb attack I realised in a small way how terrifying it must have been. He said, and I quote " the noise you can't immagine the screaming of the bombs and the exposions I have never been so frightened ever in my life".

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