Betty Occleshaw

Illustration by Heather Hookey

Doodlebugs

It was 1944, D-Day had started and so had the bombs - also called Doodlebugs or V.I.'s

We, living at Twickenham, were on the route they took, commonly called "Bomb Alley". This was because S.H.A.E.F.  H.Q. was about 2 miles away in Bushey Park.

The bomb exploded and the ground shook

My mother and I set out to walk to a friend's house with a message from my father. We had not got very far when we heard a buzz bomb coming close. The engine shut off or stopped. We were not close enough to home or anywhere to take shelter.  Two men on a motorbike were close by and literally threw themselves off the bike into the road. One man called out "throw your little girl down and yourself on top of her NOW".  Mum promptly did this. At that moment the bomb exploded and the ground shook. We lay there for a few minutes and then mum picked herself up and attended to me. My knees were all bloody and scraped and I was quite shaken up. Then we set off home.

The house was undamaged except for the windows being shattered and the door hanging by it's hinges. My mother hurried inside to make sure my Grandmother was alright. She looked quite unworried.  Mum said "are you okay mum? Didn't you hear the buzz bombs go off?"

Grandma said "Oh, I thought it was the wireless. I was listening to Dick Barton Special Agent" - a very popular programme. We laughed about this episode later, many times.

Only the grandmother had survived

What was not so funny was that this bomb had demolished six houses. Worse it had also killed several people, as it had also demolished the Anderson shelters in the gardens as well. In one house, only the grandmother had survived as she had been in the house under the stairs. She had gone into the house to get something from the kitchen it seems and so survived.

We counted ourselves very fortunate indeed. If it had fallen minutes before I might not be here to tell this tale.