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This story was gathered at Bedford’s VE/VJ Celebration event at Castle Mound and submitted to the People’s War site by Gillian Ridley for Three Counties Action on behalf of Mr Norman Grey and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I was four when the war started. We lived in Scotswood in Newcastle upon Tyne. Our street was level with the Vickers Armstrong munitions Factory.

It was early on when we got bombed. We had the Anderson shelter in the garden but it flooded so we couldn’t use it. A neighbour down the road said we could use hers. It was quite crowded as I remember, as all her family used it too.
I remember running down the road with the incendiary bombs landing our road in a big stream. I think they mistook our road for the river.
I remember saying to me Ma “look at the bonny lights”.
Ma was a firewatcher in the evenings and when we were down the shelter she would be out fire fighting.

Shortly after that my brother and I were evacuated to Long Town in Cumberland. There I remember a spitfire that came down, he was coming down hit the top of the trees and crashed into the farmer’s field, the farmer was livid, as he had just ploughed that field

Ma was working at Vickers so she had to stay on.

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