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Memories of a wartime bombing on Penge

(based on an interview with Mr Albert Skegg by Medway Library staff held in Gillingham Library on 7th. July 2005.)

Bomb in Oak Grove Road, Penge.

At 11 o’clock on 30th June 1944, a Flying Bomb came over and landed on Oak Grove Road, Penge. Our mother, Lillian Skegg, and the said neighbours, Eileen Ginny, Eileen Jarvis and Rose Wells died as a result of this.

I was working in the Anerley area at the time. I came home for lunch only to find that half the houses in the road had been hit. I was told to report to the Wardens’ Post that was set up at the corner of the road. They sent me to a house in Chesham Road, and it was here I was told that my mother had been killed and that my father was in Beckenham Cottage Hospital. It was very sad to see him.

After the bomb

All of our mother’s family lived in the Maple Road area of Penge. She had three sisters, so I went to live with Aunt Queen and Uncle George, my sister Lilian went to Aunt Maude and Uncle Jim and my other sister Shirley went to stay with Aunt Ivy. We have a lot to thank our aunts and uncles for in a time of need. My two sisters went to live with our father when he set up a new home at a later date.

The Memorial

Sixty years after the Second World War I decided that a memorial was needed to commemorate all the people of Penge who had died in the Flying Bomb Raids of 1944. I was given permission by Beckenham Crematorium and Cemetery to place one in the Waterfall Ribbon Garden. I purchased a granite stone, which was dedicated to them and especially to our mother. It was blessed by Father Leon Carberry of St. James Church, Elmers End, Beckenham, at 11 o’clock on the 30th June 2004. My sister Shirley and I were there.

Eighteen Flying Bombs fell on Penge during 1944.

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