- Contributed byÌý
- bedfordmuseum
- People in story:Ìý
- Mrs Jean Martell (nee) Inskip and Mr. Martell
- Location of story:Ìý
- Cranwell, Bedford, London, Shefford, Maulden (Beds.)
- Background to story:Ìý
- Royal Air Force
- Article ID:Ìý
- A7867975
- Contributed on:Ìý
- 18 December 2005
An oral history interview with Mrs. Jean Martell conducted by Brian Mears at an outreach event held at Riseley Village Hall on 30th November 2005 (on behalf of Bedford Museum).
“My future husband was in the RAF teaching radio to WAAFs at Cranwell. He was self taught from his own studies. Unfortunately he had bad eyesight and was unable to be Commissioned or to go abroad.
In 1944 I was at Bedford College, Regents Park, London undertaking a secretarial course but I did not experience much bombing. However, when I returned to Bedford where I had a flat, I could see the glow when the East End of London was ablaze. On the train journeys between Bedford and London there were no lights in the carriages and no station names as well as total blackout.
We were married in Shefford (Bedfordshire) in 1945. The air raid siren went off half way through the ceremony! I moved to Maulden in 1945 and a bomb landed in the garden — some way from the house - but I didn’t hear it because it went deeply into the ground. The milkman the next morning said, ‘Did you hear the bombs?’ That was the first that I knew about it.
After the cessation of hostilities my husband worked advising demobbed personnel on legal problems such as housing as he was in this profession before WWII had begun.â€
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