大象传媒

It all happened in 1945 at the end of the school day. I was leaving school (St James' Infants School on The Hornet) to go home which was around 5 minute walk away and I was walking near to a cinema when I heard an almighty crash and all the windows in the cinema fell out. The crash turned out to be a Liberator bomber which had crash landed in a nearby field. The engine of the plane went through the classroom where all my classmates were sat minutes earlier. Two of my classmates were badly burned in the fire - I don't remember their names. When I arrived home, I remember seeing the plate glass window which was in the living room had shattered and it had shattered in the same place as my mother sat most days with her sewing machine. On this occasion she wasn't sat there, again very luckily. Another sign that the plane had exploded close to our house was a stray bullet had lodged itself in the doormat. I was young but I remember the debris and the noise in particular.

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