Bedfordshire

Barrage Balloons at Landguard Point.

I was then in Balloon Squadron 928. I haven't seen anything much about the Balloon Squadrons but we...

My Grandparents War Experiences.

When war broke out my grandfather, Richard Elliott was 16, and he enlisted himself into the army, and was...

We Move to Haynes, Beds.

Eventually losing control of the weight, they hurtled though the front door where they went “****...

The Last Wartime Bride.

It was August 1944, Tom and I met on a train, he was on a weekend's leave going to his home in...

My Home Guard Experience

Uniform and Weapons At first the uniform was bland as it only had LDV and an armband. In June 1942 we were...

Evacuation 1939: From Southend to London to Meppershall

Immediately we returned to our accomodation and while dad and my elder brother settled with the landladay...

The Land Army Girl and the Americans

At 18 I did not want to be called up so I volunteered for the land army, where I was sent to...

Evacuated from East Sussex to Bedford

I was 12 in 1940 when they closed my school-Seaford Senior because of the treat of invasion as we were on...

Blenheim Bomber, V2 Rocket and Other Incidents

Early in the war someone in authority feared that enemy aircraft and gliders might use large fields as...

First Curry and Rice.

I went to a public school and we were evacuated with the school to a country Mansion in Culham,...

The Day My Dad Came Home!

My father, Ernest Samuel Payne, was captured in Thessolonika Greece. We lived in Goldington, near Bedford,...

Mrs Churchill's Aid to Russia Fund

My mother kept chickens and as eggs were very scarce Dad took them to work and raffled them for the Mrs...

Airfield Driving

Soon the Squadron had to move to R.A.F. Mildenhall in Suffolk and this is something that remains in my mind...

The day the evacuees came.

The next morning found me, with my friend Jill, in the wide main corridor which was lined with tressle...

Dancing All Night in Bedford

When I heard the war had ended I danced from one end of the Bedford Embankment to the other....

The Chesters of Greyfriars Walk

My brother Peter who was eight years older than myself was going to school at Queens Park and was on the...

Ron Burgess as a Boy in Wartime Bedford

After School that afternoon taken by my mother to see the devastation in Ashburnham Road and Midland Road,...

Hartup Wartime History

I was one of six boy choristers who sang with the BBC's live performance of a Nativity Play from...

Salvage

These included the Victorian cast iron gates and railings from the front of the Edward Street...

Glenn Millers Dolls House

Working at the BBC meant my grandfather got to know a number of the personalities and celebrities of the...

A Child in Bedford

He was also a Special Constable in the Bedford Police. I remember the garden turned turned over to the...

Land Army Life

My brother was missing in Singapore and I didn't want to be called up and moved a long way from my...

From W Blott & Sons, Drapery to Munitions at Chimney Corner

I was tying up sticks of cordite which was hard, in sticks like pencils, the colour of maccaroni, and then...

Farming and POWs

This initially housed German prisoners, but after about 1943, they were replaced by Italians. In fact after...

Evacuees and Billeted Soldiers

Next door but one also had some spare rooms; they had two Polish evacuees named Bernhard and Walther......

My Billet was Burnt Down

Phyllis who had been using the electric ring to make cocoa had panicked when an Officer had come around to...