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During the summer of 1940, just after my father, Peter Wright, had left for work at the nearby Kemble aerodrome my mother, Dorothy Wright, heard the air-raid sirens sound in the town of Cirencester. At the time they lived at Chesterton Estate, which is about a mile and a-half from the centre of Cirencester. As well as the sound of the sirens she heard the noise of aeroplane engines and gunfire from the approaching bomber. She put my elder brother, who was about nine months old at the time, in a drawer located under the stairs to keep him safe, and went to take cover under the stairs herself. Instead, she decided to go to the bedroom window to have a look the events unfolding in the sky. As the German bomber passed overhead, at about roof top height, she could see the German crew dressed in their khaki over-alls. She could see all the actions of the German crews firing their guns clearly at the pursuing fighters.

The aircraft headed in the general direction of nearby South Cerney. As it gradually disappeared, one of the neighbours, also preferring to see the action rather than take shelter, shouted out, “We all must be bloody mad!” When my father returned from work in the evening, he said to my mother “We had a close one today!"

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