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This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site Katherine Campbell, from WW2 Team, on behalf of Peter Barnard and has been added to the site with his / her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions

My father was an Air Raid Warden in Goole. I was 6 when war broke out. In 1941, an enemy aircraft jettisoned four bombs, one of which landed on my house at 150 Boothferry Road. Mother and I and two friends were under the stairs. Father was patrolling the street outside and apparently saved a girl's life by lying on top of her when he saw the bombs coming down. The bombers had probably been aiming for Hull. The family had to go and live with relatives until bought another house at 50 Marshfield Road. The chap living next door was a surveyor who influenced me to become a surveyor and civil engineer. I remember two or three young boys including me used to gather bits of aircraft that crashed on the town and bury them secretly. There were casualties from war walking around the town during the war that we used to tease. There was another occasion when an Allied aircraft returning from a raid crashed and took the top of our house off and landed in the adjoining primary school. These incidents are all well recorded in the local newspaper, The Goole Times and there are booklets available.

Goole is located on a wide bend on the River Ouse and Allied aircraft seemed to meet there before they went off to raids.

My father was a small farmer and he had grain (wheat) in a big shed at the back of the house. One day, thieves stole a lot of bags of this wheat and I remember, after cursing them. revealing that the wheat was coated in poison, as a weedkiller. He believed that they were feeding their pigeons with this wheat. This gave him some small satisfaction.

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