Bedfordshire

Training to be an Air Gunner by Stan Garbutt

There were two wireless ops on the crew, one was the wireless op the other front gunner - I was front...

Getting it Wrong and the Shattered Shelter: An Aircraft Spotter in Bedford

One of the bombs landed in a scrapyard and another coal storage for a railway... The bomb that landed in...

Evacuation - Off you go to Luton

In 1940 I was evacuated to Luton in Bedfordshire with the Polytechnic... There were three German girls -...

Bedford Home Guard

Bedford itself was bombed twice, once at 9 in the morning near the railway station, and luckily no one was...

Childhood Memories

I can remember us all having lots of childhood ailments. Lots of people had their tonsils out, including...

Deafening Silence of the Listening Station

In fact the “Y” service was covertly listening to German High Command radio traffic, extracting...

Wartime Effort: Making Bricks in Bedfordshire

My parents stayed in London with the youngest children but they eventually came downto Flitwick as well. My...

Memories of the Bombing of the Grosvenor Hotel

I remember seeing the four bombs that hit the Grosvenor Hotel and the County Theatre in Midland Road. I...

A Mysterious Evacuee

The weekend the war started, after fixing the black out covers on our cars headlamps, my father and I went...

Evacuee in Bedford

I arrived in bedford just as the war began, with my mother and two brothers, at bedford railway station we...

Happy Endings part 2

I started school at Amptill Road school, my dear friend Jean Glassser also a Londoner became my best friend...

Bedford Boys Club Gymnastics Team

There was the German bombing of the Russell Park Area and in particular Laxton's Orchards... It's...

A Weekend Away from RAF Henlow

A colleague named Easter from Tooting and myself from Acton decided we were going to go home for a week-end...

Blackout, American Forces, and the 'Pig-bin'

We sometimes went down our neighbours air raid shelter, which smelt funny My mum kept the tobbacco part of...

My Life Before, During and After the War.

One of them flew in a 'heavie' which flew on a 'sortie' to Germany and on the way back was...

Evacuation to Keysoe in September 1939

We attended Keysoe School. Playing with the unexploded Incendiary Bombs deposited on the Football Field was...

Childhood Memories: In Bedfordshire and Essex

When my Mum and Dad were living in London in Brixton in a top floor flat two doors away from us a...

First Day Light Raid in Britain

I went in our front room, my Mum asked me what I'd like for my tea, then we were blown right across...

Fetching the Pram

During the war I lived close to the Thurleigh Airfield... Occasionaly the men drank so much they had to...

Panic Over Snowden part 3

He was a very successful Forensic Scientist, becoming, amongst other things, the Director of the Newcastle...

Podington Air Base

My Grandad, Ernie, owned a farm in Bedfordshire, and the Americans chose his farm land for an air base....

Thurleigh Airfield

As we shared our school in Bedford with Owens school in London, we had the afternoons off to cycle around...

The Land Army and The Bennett Girls

I was born and brought up in Fulham London. but my father got a job designing the Bennett Brick works at...

Memories of Sandy: In Bedfordshire

I remember we were standing near a lampost opposite my grandmother's house in West Road in Sandy, and...

Evacuees from Bethnal Green to Caldicote

In September 1940 the bus arrived in our village of Upper Caldicote in Bedfordshire with evactuees from the...

A Student's Wartime Memories: In Bedford

The first on a scrap merchant's yard to the rear of Prebend Street, the second one was a direct hit on...