大象传媒

I was at Bedford Modern School at the start of the war. Left school July 1940, joined W H Allen as a senior engineering student and worked there until 1986.During the war we had very little free time as there were evening classes at Bedford School on 3 - 4 nights a week, then one evening and Sunday morning on Home Guard parades and once a month all night fire watching at the factory.
On the 23rd of July 1942 mid-morning about 10.30am, I was in the factory test bay when suddenly the Air Raid Sirens sounded, all the lights went out followed by several explosions - everyone dived for the shelters.
A lone german bomber had suddenly appeared over the town without warning and dropped a number of bombs. The first on a scrap merchant's yard to the rear of Prebend Street, the second one was a direct hit on a sweet shop on the corner of Grafton Road and Midland Road - a third bomb hit a hotel on Ashburnham Road, completely demolishing half of it.By sheer coincidence the sweet shop was closed that day and that part of the hotel was unoccupied so there were no serious casualties.Had the bombs been dropped about 100 yards to the West they would have hit the Gas Works, the main railway line, the station and the W H Allen factory.

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