Bombed out of Hornchurch

In 1944 I was living in Cumberland Avenue, Hornchurch with my two small daughters and my eighty year old grandmother, while my husband was serving in Burma. One day I had taken my 18 month daughter Janet with me up to the local shops when an air raid began. People began to run for the shelter but as there was no time I went to some shops that were being built and lay among the brickwork sheltering Janet beneath me. I heard a plane crash and when the all clear sounded I hurried home not sure of what I would find. When I got to Cumberland Avenue the WRVS were already there serving tea and I could not see the end of the road for dust and debris. As I walked down the road I saw my sister-in-law who lived in the flat next door and then I saw my grandmother coming out of the front door carrying my baby daughter Pam who had been cut on the arm. The roof had gone, all the tiles and the windows and a tremendous amount of mess. A tarpaulin was rigged up over the roof as a temporary measure. My father-in-law saw the damage to the flat from the train he was travelling on and we went to live with my in-laws for two weeks in Laindon, Essex.
We returned when the roof was fixed only to lose it again when a bomb dropped on nearby Crystal Avenue. This time I went to the Evacuation office in Wingletye Lane and we were offered evacuation to Maidenhead, Berkshire. We were given tickets and directions to Lockmead Avenue with no idea of what to expect and off we went. We stayed for three weeks to a month with a couple who let us have their spare room. It was safer than London but very hard on us all and my grandmother became quite ill with the stress. We returned to our flat in Cumberland Avenue where we remained for the rest of the war. I didn't let my husband know any of this until afterwards as I didn't want him to worry about us.

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