Retreat to Anderson Shelter

I will always remember when the sirens sounded on a local factory (I was about 4 years old), My mother had to hurriedly put my socks on whilst I was sitting on the edge of the bed. We then had to rush down to the shelter and the next thing I remember was being in the shelter which my father had sunk 3ft into the ground and covered with earth and grass sods. There were candles in jam jars hanging round to give us some light and a tin of plain biscuits to hand round. We were joined by next door neighbours, the Luxton family , minus Mr Luxton who preferred to stay in his own shelter which he made underneath the house but the others didn't trust its safety. The Germans sent down incendiary bombs to light up the munitions factories in our area but the quick thinking residents rushed out with dustbin lids to extinguish the glow. the following bombers had to abort their operations due to no directional light and so we avoided devastation. Most of our area survived intact. My father, James, who was in munitions work, saw a V2 rocket seemingly heading towards the house but which overshot and landed on a farm in Hubberton, demolishing a barn and killing a cow.

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