The Wheeler family lived in the house on the High Street named "Stonehurst" - It was hit in the bombing on 3^rd Oct. 1940.

On the day of the air raid the first bomb hit the old Queen Victoria Hotel (now the Rilton), the second building to be hit was our house "Stonehurst". The bomb dropped in the yard making a large crater and taking a corner off the house. My grandmother was coming out of the bathroom and mother was in the living room at the time but fortunately neither was hurt, apart from the odd bruise. Mother was about to leave the house to do her shopping, so a few minutes later she would have been in the yard where the bomb exploded. I can recall my mother saying that her main memory of the bombing, apart from the noise, was how most of the furniture in the house was moved into the middle of the room due to the blast.

The next member of the family involved, was sister Jean, aged 10. Jean was in Miss Bennett's class at the Alfred Street School and recalled a tremendous noise and rumbling, which prompted all the pupils to dive under their desks because had been rehearsed for air raids - practiced on a regular basis.

Jean said that everyone seemed very calm under the supervision of the Headmaster, Mr. Lawrence. Jean was very upset when she saw all the damage to the Infants Classroom; not knowing of course that several children had been killed. For further schooling, Jean was moved to St. Mark's Hall in Highfield Road prior to attending the Intermediate School.

The luckiest member of the family to be involved was brother Reg, who was in Geoff Morgan's electrical shop in Church Street, when a bomb went through the bathroom window and embedded itself several feet in the ground at the foot of the stairs - and very fortunately did not explode. Reg declares that the bomb passed within a few yards of his head. Mr and Mrs. Morgan were upstairs in a storeroom at the time and were doubtful about coming downstairs with an unexploded bomb there. So Reg fetched a long ladder, put it up to a rear window and Mr and Mrs. Morgan escaped down the ladder.

It was reported later that the Bomb Disposal Squad declared the bomb was manufactured in Czechoslovakia and a piece of cardboard was inserted in the fuse making the bomb useless - sounds good.

When the situation at Morgan’s shop was sorted out, brother Reg got on his bike to see if the family was alright; firstly to look for Jean, who he found in the High Street, and then on to "Stonehurst". His good fortune changed somewhat when he sped into the "Stonehurst" yard too fast and finished up in the bomb crater with his bike. Having escaped the bomb he got a few bruises falling into the crater.

I nearly had the same experience as Reg, a few days later. I worked on aircraft production in Coventry (prior to joining the RAF) and came home some weekends on my Sunbeam motor bike.

Communications were nearly non-existent during the war because very few families had telephones, so I was completely unaware of the Rushden bombing. Therefore on Saturday morning I rode into the "Stonehurst" yard and nearly drove into the bomb crater.

My future wife, Freda, was working in R. Tarry's office near to Caves factory when it was bombed and she was not hurt.

Her sister Joyce, was working in Claridge’s factory office (Orbit Tyres next door now) and a bomb dropped a few yards from the factory and this bomb also failed to explode.

So all round the Wheeler family and friends were entirely fortunate to have survived this daylight raid on Rushden.

I was also fortunate with bombing raids. I kept a diary during the war and recorded I survived 87 raids in Coventry including the "BLITZ".

Geoff Wheeler