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My mother Iris Richards had lost her first husband to TB in very early 1940. My grandfather George Richards was determined to help and decided to get a bigger house to include her.

He went searching and told my Mum that he had found this lovely house close to green fields which would give her a much quieter place to live. This quiet place was in fact almost next to Hornchurch Fighter Aerodrome!

My Mum was often part of the Luftwaffe target and had the roof blown off more than once, the house being rattled by anti-aircraft installations and pilots landing in the garden. She also met some heroes of the RAF, inluding I believe Richard Hillary and Bob Stanford Tuck.

My grandfather also assisted in buying her a dog called George, who apparently fathered a whole generation of black and tan mongrels in Hornchurch and had the ability to get into the Morrison shelter first and then prevented any others getting in by barking and growling.

Strangely it did help her to recover and she remembered Hornchurch with pride.
She died in 1983.

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