Cambridge during the war

We moved into 8 Regent Terrace in 1938 and we lived there through the war. I saw the air raids shelters being built in front of the house on Parkers Piece. One night quite early in the war we had incendiary bombs dropped all over Parkers Piece, we had the Cam Tax Taxi garage one side of us alight and the Perse School which was opposite the Catholic Church was burnt down. We were lucky that our own house was not damaged as a bomb fell on the roof of a garage behind our house and my mother and the air raid warden put it out. We wondered why the bomb had not fallen through the corrugated iron roof of the garage, it had hit the brick work of the neighbouring terraced house and bounced onto the garage roof.
Another night during a heavy bomb raid, one bomb fell on part of the Catholic Church and bombs fell on Granchester Meadows - a dozen or more bombs.
I was 10 years old when the war broke out and went to St George's School on Hills Road, one afternoon the siren went and we were crossing the playground to get the air raid shelter when a Dornier came over in a low dive and released 5 bombs near to the railway bridge in Mill Road.
After the war finished I was plumbing and we did work on the houses in Mill Road that were damaged.
Another night in the early part of the war bombs fell on Vicarage Terrace and children were killed.
One afternoon a Hurrican fighter plane crashed between two houses in Lensfield Road opposite the Spread Eagle Pub, the pilot must have known he couldn't avoid crashing but he managed to guide the plane between two houses and saved many lives as a result. My father worked for the Gas Company at the time and turned the gas off in the two houses.

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