大象传媒

I was born at Horsham West Sussex in 1932 I moved to Ashford when I was a few weeks old.
Ifirst lived at Kennington then moved to Ashford and in 1935 moved to Prospect Place in Forge Lane.My father drove an horse and cart for Carter Patterson .I was evacuated to Oxford my brother went to Witney and my mother and younger brother went to a village a few miles away.My brother used to cycle to see me quite often but didn'y see much of my mother. my father stayed at Ashford although he did come up to see us all.
We all eventually moved back home and enjoyed life together .Then on 24th March the day of the BIGraid which I remember so vividly as each of the family had their own escapes.My mother left early on train to visit my grandparents at Horsham .Iwent to school with my younger brother I went to Beaver Rd school and he to Victoria Rd school.The girls in the adjoining school as soon as the siren went left school to go to their shelter 150 yards down the road to the other school,when the next warning came a minute or so later we the boys left our classes to go to the shelters in the playground.I and a few boys at the back of the line to go outside to the shelters were suddenly confronted with a boy flying in the door yelling 'down they are machine gunning and bombing we all dropped to the floor a huge cloud of dust went up everything went dark I don't recall hearing any noise .There must have been, anyway the all clear went we went into the playground and well it was covered in bricks the girls side of the school was no longer there the playground was littered with bricks one of our shelters stood against the end of the girls school was now isolates.Mr White our head teacher was marvellous he collected us all together to check no injuries,told to go home and await instructions about rehousing us in another school.
Iwent home saw my younger brother on the way told him what had happened.
I then got home to find my older brother at home .He hadn't gone to school as he wasn't feeling too well.He stayed in the table shelter.
Our next job was to go to find our father to see if he was alright.We had to go to the Public house next to where the first world war tank is.
On the way we had to pass the top of the road where the garage was no longer it was in flames..
We eventually found our father and he told us his story.
He was sheltering in the gents toilet outside of the pub in his yard where he worked from.He told us pointing out the corner of the pub had been hit by a bomb boucrd on the ground under the tin roof through a brick wall bounced of a shelter in the grounds behind and then exploded in the bakery with many killed.
Soon after a month or so later somebody pointed out that the roof of our house had lifted and moved an inch we could see then the line all round the top of the house.
We later moved to Horsham in Sussex to have the doodlebugs annoy us although they mainly passed over.