Divine Intervention?

I was born 1 year before the outbreak of the war and only after it was all over did my father tell us the following slightly eerie tale.

To understand the truth of this you should know the type of man he was. He was very humble and very sceptical of any gossip he heard about anyone. He tried to sign up at the onset of war but failed the medical. He was born in Nottingham and his parents kept a general store. The family were church goers although not fanatical in their beliefs. He earned a scholarship to the High School and also to the Nottingham College of Art which was his first love and the place was taken up.

On leaving school he took up an apprenticeship which had him working alongside the City Architect Cecil Howitt and worked on the Industrial Nottingham freize which decorates the front of the Council House in the Market Square. However at the onset of the war there was no call for such buildings or decorative work and he managed through a family friend to obtain work at the "Gun Factory" (ROF)

All workers were instructed on the need for absolute silence on any happenings at a place so vital to the war effort and there was no way my father would break this trust.

It was therefore quite a shock when he was finally able to tell us one story which happened during this time. The air raid siren went off when he and several mates were away from their normal position. They quickly ran to a small brick built outbuilding, though not an official air raid shelter for some degree of safety. They were there for some time before the "all clear" was sounded and they made their way to their place of work. Very shortly afterwards a bomb demolished the shed they had vacated only a short time before and they were really shocked. A short while later the "all clear" was sounded! After some investigations it transpired that the first one they all heard never happened!

As I said, he never divulged this information until after the war and when asked why he didn't tell it before he answered it was top secret and if spies had heard that a direct hit was made on the Gun Factory the enemy would be able to effect a raid with much more serious consequences.

Joan Butler (nee Simpson)

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.