Bombed in my pram

We used to live in a little street called Edwin Place which the houses of Eastern Road backed onto — it’s now sheltered housing, Evelyn Glennie and Jacqueline du Pre Houses. And the story I remember, and I was involved in, but much too young to remember, but having been told over the years, you think you can remember and you were there! But I was in a pram, quite young, with my sister holding onto the side, with my mother coming back from shopping in St George’s Road and we met up with a neighbour’s daughter. The neighbour’s parents had a greengrocer's shop, called Chapman’s, in Bedford Street and as the siren went we managed to get to our house and my mother invited her to come in with us, and she said “No, I’ve only got to go a few streets”, she was going to her grandmother’s house in Hereford Street and she had a bike and she went. But, apparently, this bomb fell on Bedford Street. Whether that was the same time as the Odeon was bombed, I don’t know, but whatever, the story goes that I was in the pram but the blast of the bomb took us straight down a flight of stairs. But we weren’t hurt at all, but this girl, unfortunately, was killed, which was very, very sad. That’s not a real, real memory but it’s a story that I’ve been told over and over again that I imagine I can remember it. We were lucky being between those two sites where the bombing was quite bad.

This story was submitted to the People's War site by volunteer Sue Craig on behalf of Margaret Sinden, and has been added to the site with her permission. Margaret fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.