Doodlebug

I was always fascinated by my mum telling me what happened to her one day as she was wheeling my two sisters towards Highbury Corner, Hackney, London. She had one of those huge prams that everyone had in those days and sat at either end was my sister Valerie and Joan.

She said that as she walked along towards Highbury Corner to meet a friend in a cafe at the end of the road, a cafe where mother's used to sit and feed their babies and chat with friends, she heard the dreaded noise of a Doodlebug. Standing quite still she looked up and to her horror realised the sound was coming in her direction. Looking around she couldn't see anywhere she could run to for shelter. So instead took my sisters out of the pram. Sat the two of them on the pavement and turned the pram over the top of them to act as a shelter. Then sitting down next to it she waited.

As she did she saw the Doodlebug fly over and could see the flames coming out of the back of it. Then it's engines cut out and she shut her eyes and waited. She said there came an enormous explosion from the bottom of the road and debri flew along the street in her direction. But she and my sisters were safe.

The Doodlebug hit Highbury Corner and killed loads of people. Mum never would go into too much detail of how many and who, except that the Doodlebug flattened the cafe with the mother's and children in it. The strange thing was that as they heard the Doodlebug in the cafe my mother's friend stood up and she was still standing unhurt when she looked around at the devastation around her.

Even weirder was that years later my father in law told me that he too had been walking towards Highbury Corner that day and had taken shelter in a doorway when the Doodlebug dropped. Of course I didn't meet my husband until 1965 so this makes this story personal to him as well.

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