The Day That Our Home Disappeared: Bombed Out by a V1 in Ilford

On June 26 1944 my mother decided that my sister and I were too tired to go to school as we had been up all night going in and out of our Anderson shelter in the garden. It had been a particularly bad night for air raids with the siren going off so many times. Come the morning my father went off to work in London as usual and during that morning the siren sent off yet again and yet again we went into the shelter. After a short while we heard the noise of a flying bomb (Doodle bug) coming down very near, the dreaded noise stopped and we all waited knowing that there would be an explosion. There was a loud bang and rubble and soil fell into the door of our shelter - we were entombed and could not get out. After a little while some of the rubble etc shifted and we could see daylight. My mother, who was expecting a baby, clawed her way up the steps of the shelter and managed to scramble out with me and my sister following. When we got out all we could see was an emptiness as our home and many around had been completely flattened, the bomb had landed in our front garden. There was nothing left, my father's athletic cups and medals, photographs, even baby clothes for the new arrival - all gone. An uncle who lived quite near rushed down to see if we were alive, he then had the task of meeting my father off the train to tell him what had happened. We then lived in many temporary houses throughout the rest of the war and eventually our house and all the others were rebuilt and we moved back in. My mother gave birth two days later to another girl, Jennifer, who is now married with two daughters and has recently become a grandmother. It was a day that I will never, never forget. Valerie Blois(nee Sandy)

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