- Contributed by
- BBC Open Centre, Hull
- People in story:
- Ken Thorley. Story originally submitted to The Beverley Civic Society.
- Location of story:
- Beverley. East Yorkshire
- Background to story:
- Civilian
- Article ID:
- A4201633
- Contributed on:
- 16 June 2005
I was an 11 year old boy the night the bomb dropped. Dad was the Chief Air Raid Warden on the Cherry Tree Estate during the war. When the sirens went off we used to have to hide underneath the kitchen table — me, my Mam, my Dad and my three sisters.
One particular night my Dad had come home dressed in his Warden’s outfit, gas mask and lamp, and no doubt happy having had a few halves in the local pub, when the sirens went off. We all dived for cover and waited. First it was quiet, then came the drone of aeroplane engines, and then there was the biggest bang we had ever heard.
We heard Dad screaming. We all jumped out from under the kitchen table to find Dad stuck in the tin bath, covered in soot. “I’ve lost me hand”, he was shouting. The bomb, which had landed in our back garden, hadn’t blown his hand off, only the bulb from his Wardens Lamp.
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