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I was eleven years old when the war broke out. We lived near South Nutfield Aerodrome (now called Redhill). There was a very early air-raid. The bombs were dropping right around the perimeter. Another occasion I was helping my Mother make my bed, when a German plane passed the window — just gliding with the pilot slumped over his controls. It went over the trees on the edge of the trees in our garden where my brother was up one of the trees looking with his binoculars. He came down very quickly! The plane landed on the runway unmanned, but I believe this to be the only time the runway was ‘hit’.

On September 1st 1940 (Battle of Britain Day) we had been visiting my Grandparents in Exmouth. We had had our supper and were preparing to go to bed around 9pm. My Mother was knitting — as usual in the sitting room, and my Father was outside the front door watching events. My Brother dived under the bed when he heard the plane diving. I tried to get out of my bedroom but failed as I was knocked out by the heavy door which crashed on me pushing my face into the ornaments falling off the ledge. As I came to I was convinced I was dead, but could hear my Mother calling me. My Father found me and carried me downstairs, put me on the sofa and threw a jug of water in my face. I was badly cut on my hand and around my eye. The same night, several bungalows were hit and several people killed in South Nutfield. As our home was in the middle of 3 acres, no one realised that we needed help. The phone was useless, and the car had its roof crashed in. However, we managed to climb in and reached South Nutfield Village Hall. The local doctor had been summoned, so Dr Taylor was called out of retirement, and the medical assistance was sent for from Bletchingly. I was stitched up in the dusty village hall on a trestle table. With no lurking bugs to my wounds, I took a week off school.

My Brother dug out the bomb crater alongside the house and found the bomb had been made in Britain some 3 years previously, and had presumably been left behind at Dunkirk as I don’t imagine in those days we would be selling onto the Germans.

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