大象传媒

This is an edited extract of a recorded interview conducted by Adrian Green of Bromley Museum with Irene Smart. It has been submitted to the People鈥檚 War website with her permission.

'...Then there was a very bad raid on 3rd August and my father had only been home from work for a week, he had lumbago and couldn鈥檛 walk very well. He was going into Bromley shopping, but the warning went so he walked straight home to the house because of mum being here on her own, and the raid started. They walked down the garden, which is 120 feet long to the shelter; mother stepped in the Anderson shelter and my dad was blasted in, because the bomb had dropped into the three oak trees in our garden and exploded. I can鈥檛 remember what happened next, I think my mother came out of the shelter, to the house to get help and of course the emergency services came and got my dad out and took him to Beckenham. He was in Beckenham hospital for ten days and died. They didn鈥檛 leave mother in Beckenham, on the Friday, which would have been the 4th August they sent her down to Pembury hospital because they knew he wouldn鈥檛 recover.'

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