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This story was submitted to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People’s War site by Wymondham Learning Centre on behalf of Henry Hill and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Before World War Two broke out I was working at Bellings electrical factory in Enfield. However, the government commandeered parts of the factory in 1939 and we began to manufacture smoke bombs, disposable aircraft tanks, mortar sites, parts for sten guns and incendiary bomb extinguishers. The extinguishers were really Belling bedwarmers. Instead of the original electric bulb, a sheet of brown paper was put inside and filled with sand. When a bomb was burning, the lid was taken off and, when the warmer was turned upside down the brown paper burnt and the sand extinguished the fire.
During the day I worked from six in the morning until six in the evening. After work on four nights of the week it became a night for fire fighting at the factory. I remember that there was a shed in the grounds where we could rest.
The factory was built in a hollow and the earth, which had been excavated, surrounded the building in four feet high banks. After an air raid there were many unexploded bombs, which had buried themselves in the earth banks, and we had to probe any holes with rods. On finding something hard, we would contact the A.R.P., who would explode the bomb on site or dig it out. One day I found what I thought was a bomb, which had passed through a vicious thorn bush. As I prodded the hole my hands were torn by thorns, necessitating a visit to the Prince of Wales Hospital,
Tottenham (which was supported by gratuities from Belling), where my nails had to be removed in order to get out some of the thorns.
I left hospital with my hands bandaged and I was given two weeks sick leave. While I was off work I visited my mother-in-law, a Mrs. Lee, who lived in Anglesey Road, Ponders End. As we were sitting talking we were aware of a single plane overhead. Thinking that it was an R.A.F. plane, we were surprised when we heard the swoosh of a falling bomb and stunned at the violence of the explosion. I ran across the road and saw that the row of eight council houses had not been flattened — they must have been well built — but were leaning precariously at an angle. Although it was 2.30 in the afternoon, miraculously no one had been in the houses and therefore there were no casualties.
In August 1940 I got married. We had arranged a car to take us to St. Andrews Church, Enfield, and then to the reception in the church hall. The A.R.P. interrupted the reception as there was an air raid alert. We all had to walk home — fortunately most people were local. A heavy air raid followed but the church hall was left standing.
I am a musician and, in my spare time, I ran a small band — ‘Harry Hill’s Band’. We visited anti-aircraft sites, which had reception rooms, to entertain the troops with sing-alongs or to provide music for dances. We received a petrol allowance for that purpose, otherwise we would not have been able to travel far. One night, after entertaining troops in Hertfordshire, we were driving back to London, along what is now the A11, with diffusers over our headlights, when we realised that a plane seemed to be following us. When I reached my flat in Bowood Road, I rushed indoors leaving the car in the street outside the flat, instead of putting it into the garage as I usually did. A bomb dropped on a block of flats at the end of the road and the debris smashed into my car, damaging it badly. But I was safe!
I must have had a charmed life. I came so close to exploding bombs and yet I survived to tell the tale.

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