However, he remained unusually calm, stood quite still for a few seconds, brushed himself down and with an enigmatic smile remarked, "Abington, you've cured my b----- hiccups".

In my library, was a book containing a number of ghost stories and I received many requests from the evacuees for "another short story Mr Abington, before we go to bed". Putting out the light, to intensify the macabre effect, I launched out on some blood-curdling tale of the supernatural. "Three in a bed", was their favourite story and reading in low, sepulcral tone I recounted the following terrifying episode:-

A young couple stayed as guests at a lonely house on a moor. On their first night there they retired to bed and soon fell asleep. Presently the man awoke with a start and a strong feeling that he was lying between two people. So certain was he of this that he dared not put his hand on the opposite side to that on which his wife was lying.

Instead, very cautiously, he roused his wife and persuaded her to get out of the bed on the far side.

He followed her and by the light of a dying fire, they both saw the bedclothes heaped up as it were, round a human form which lay in the bed. As they stared, they heard footsteps coming slowly and softly down the passage outside. The footsteps reached the bedroom door and stopped. After a moment's pause, the door handle turned, and the door, which was locked, swung slowly open.

The unfortunate couple hid their eyes in terror, so they saw nothing of what immediately followed. But they beard the footsteps pad softly across the room, there was silence and then a dreadful gurgle, and, looking at the bed once more, they saw the clothes moving as if a violent struggle was in progress on the bed. Once more the footsteps died away down the passage. The couple could get no more sleep and remained awake sitting on chairs in another room.

Coming down to breakfast, they related their experience to their host who then admitted that a previous visitor had a precisely similar adventure.

No explanation of the ghostly happenings was forthcoming and the house given up.

When one of the evacuees, now married and approaching middle age, called on us recently to renew our acquaintance, he reminded me, "how you used to make us shiver when you read this story to us in your old, dark house: what particularly haunted me for some time was the fear of touching something cold".

All remained quiet on the western front.

Where the Siegfried and Maginot lines were separated by only a short distance, the troops were often entertained by the enemy's radio. Germany and France even continued trading together in vital raw materials. Little wonder that this stage of the war became known as the "phoney" war.

A submarine penetrated the defences of Scapa Flow and sank the battleship Royal Oak.

The most dramatic incident in the naval war was the action late in 1939, when the Admiral Graf Spee, a German pocket battleship, was forced to take refuge in the neutral harbour of Montevideo from the attentions of small units of the British fleet. The crew scuttled the ship and were interned.

We still celebrated Christmas in much the usual way. There were still plenty of good things to eat and drink, and rationing had not yet begun to bite.

During 1940 there were increasing signs that we were at war but no stimulation of military operations during this odd phase.

Evacuees had settled into their new homes, not always with the best results, people of different standards of living were huddled together, often in small, inconvenient cottages, where the mistress of the house and a mother from London had to share the same kitchen, tempers flared, making life miserable for both families, Young evacuees complained of inadequate food (what could you buy even in those days with 6/6 a week?) and the sanitary arrangements were insufficient and primitive.

It was extremely cold during January and February and with only log fires in many of the damp and draughty cottages; Londoners, used to warm, dry homes, felt the cold considerably.

Irish labourers invaded Kimbolton to construct, the air base and remove trees and hedges to make runways. Our small group of special constables had many encounters with these rough and often pro-Nazi Irishmen. They were terrible drunkards and one dark night I almost stepped on one of these men lying dead drunk in the middle of the High street. My fellow constable and I had just time to drag him to safety when a blacked out military convoy passed down the street.

There was a further incident a few days later involving one of these men. An inebriated labourer staggered by the house shouting "Heil Hitler". These traitorous words were too much for our butcher who lived next door and he accosted the man and challenged him to repeat them, the drunkard again shouted "Heil Hitler", with all the strength of his lungs and stood menacing the butcher with raised fists. "Say that once again and you'll get the worse ruddy ducking of your life", exclaimed the butcher.

Once again the Irishman repeated the offensive words and without more ado, the butcher called to his son and between them they flung him into the icy waters of the river Kym. I was afraid the man would drown, but the water was not deep and he scrambled out and lurched away, cursing under his breath.

It was necessary to blow up many tree roots with dynamite to level the land for the airfield. One of the labourers in charge of these operations had an Alsatian dog; that retrieved sticks thrown by its master. One morning a charge of explosive was placed in a tangle of roots and a fuse leading to it set ready for ignition. The owner of the dog applied a match and the sizzling flame ran along the trail towards the explosive.

We had all retired to safety and stood awaiting the explosion. After the flame had travelled a short distance, the dog ran to the stick of dynamite and made towards us with the stick in its mouth. It was an explosive situation and the onlookers ran away in all directions. With remarkable coolness the dog owner picked up a stick and threw it towards the dog. To our intense relief it dropped the dynamite and retrieved the stick. When the charge exploded, everyone had been able to get to a safe distance.

The British civilian carried an amount of paraphernalia about with him or her in the spring of 1940. These consisted of a gas-mask, slung from the shoulder in a canvas container. Each day he was supposed to wear it for a brief period to accustom himself to the restricted air conditions inside the mask.

Next in importance came the National Regisration Identity card. This recorded his number in the National Register, his name and address and signature. Inside the card he was asked to carry a paper giving the name and address of his nearest relation. This would help matters if he became a casualty in air attack. Many also carried a petrol coupon and ration book which served for both food and clothing. His car headlights were mostly hidden by a plastic shield and the bumpers and mudguards painted white to obviate risk of collision in the blackout. If he left the car unattended for any length of time, he removed the rotor-arm to prevent an enemy agent from driving it away. The windows of his house were blacked out and buckets of water and sand kept handy for emergencies.

With the continuation of the phoney war, I am afraid many of us did not realise the urgency of obeying these official exhortations issued by the various authorities. He was urged to construct an air-raid shelter or trench in his garden and remain there during an alert. And then the war suddenly flared up!

We learnt over the wireless on April 8th., that Germany had begun to invade Norway.

Only four days previous to the invasion, Chamberlain in a broadcast to the nation said, "One thing is certain, Hitler has missed the bus". It soon became glaringly obvious that it was not Hitler but we who had missed that conveyance. Norway was overrun with great ease and on May 5th the Norwegian ministers fled to England.

On May 10th., came the real crunch with the Nazi invasion of Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg, the entire population of these islands felt as if they had been delivered a blow in the pit of the stomach, yet they also felt a kind of relief that this was war, the real thing.

News came through that greatly heartened everyone, Churchill had been chosen to lead the nation following the resignation of Chamberlain.

I often ponder on what might have happened if there had been no Churchill to lead us in our most perilous hour. His whole career had been shaped to fit him as the one man who could lead us to safety in the face of Nazi tyranny.

Following the collapse of France and the Dunkirk evacuation, Hitler prophesied that the war would be over by August 15th. The staggering successes of the Nazi forces had astounded the world and few countries gave us a chance of survival. The threat of invasion grew near and preparations were put in hand to counter it. Any large flat field that would be suitable for landing enemy aircraft was blocked by old farm carts, disused machinery and anything suitable to frustrate the use of gliders containing air-borne troops.

Concrete pill-boxes were built at vulnerable points and manned by Local Defence Volunteers. Their arms varied from last war rifles to shot guns and revolvers and every town and village contributed men of all ages to stem the invader.

On May 31st., orders were given for all signposts to be taken down, milestones torn up, names on railway stations, streets and villages removed in order to confuse enemy parachutists. On June 13th. the ringing of church bells was prohibited. In future they could only be rung be the military and police, to give warning of an imminent attack by air-borne forces. They were in fact rung during the invasion scare of September 7th., over a wide area of eastern and southern England. Otherwise they remained silent and as time passed, people began to miss them and doubt their use as a practical method of sounding an alarm. However, the authorities adhered to the ban and it was not until April 1943 that the order was given that bells should become redundant as a warning system. As the bombing of London did not materialise in the early part of the war, evacuees drifted back and during May, Highbury school was moved from Kimbolton to Dorset. In place of the boys we had two nursing sisters billeted with us. They belonged to an R.A.M.C. unit which occupied the castle and grounds.

I have vivid memories of that time; a strangely exhilarating summer, and the experience, like those of early childhood, are sharply rather than accurately etched upon my mind. All this is natural. In 1940, most people in the United Kingdom lived, like small children in a small world. Petrol rationing restricted travel. The use of the telephone was discouraged. The newspapers, drastically reduced in size, worked under a censorship. As a result, the average citizen knew less than usual about what was happening during one of the oddest and most critical episodes in our history.

I tried to imagine what might happen, should German tanks thunder up the road outside my house dealing death and destruction on my own townsfolk?

Would soldiers in field-grey uniforms carrying flame-throwers work their way along the hedges towards Podington airfield? Would gliders containing airborne infantry descend in the cornfields around Rushden to be engaged by the Home Guard with their antiquated weapons? What chance would the local men stand against the highly trained Nazi parachutists if they dropped in their hundreds at strategic points and seized the numerous airfields under construction in the vicinity?

Our chances of survival would be slim, for the defenders were almost unarmed after the terrific losses of arms and munitions at Dunkirk.

The whole affair took on the appearance of patriotic melodrama, rather than images of what could be a dreadful reality. Britain had escaped invasion for more than a thousand years; was she now about to be subjected to this cruel experience?

CHAPTER 32

German aircraft began to range over England during the latter part of May; mainly for reconnaissance and no bombs were dropped. The first bombs to fall on this country fell at Canterbury on the night of May 9th.

Towards the end of June we heard the first bomb explosions in Kimbolton, when several heavy explosives fell on plough-land at Keyston, a village some six miles away. We had just retired to bed when a peculiar shuddering of door and window-frames made us aware that bombs had fallen fairly near. Our house was built in 1837 and ill-fitting doors and windows were susceptible to earth tremors from missiles dropped within a twenty mile radius. These ominous sounds became very familiar during the war years.

On a warm night in July of that year, I was on police duty with several A.R.P. workers. There was complete silence as if before a thunderstorm and far away a cockerel crowed; a thin sound punctuating and accentuating that silence. From all sides searchlights went up, moving easily and quickly, fingering the stars. Nothing seemed alive but the probing antennae of the searchlights; long sprays of yellowish silver waving around like the gigantic legs of a spider. Then two searchlights from either side came together like closing fingers, till there were only two bars of light, a cross on the sky.

I saw a tiny silvery speck in the cross and there came the faint throb of aircraft engines at a great height. When the speck was almost above us, a curious whistling sound aroused our curiosity followed by two explosions which echoed among the woods.

"They were ruddy bombs", said one of my companions; and they were; the first to be dropped in Bedfordshire. The silvery speck grew smaller and smaller, a speck a mere speck and then a non-speck.

Next morning I went to look for the bomb craters and to see if any damage had been caused. The bombs had fallen in a cornfield at Pertenhall and made two shallow holes among the growing wheat. The missile must have been dropped indiscriminately for the only habitation near was an isolated farm. A hen-house had been overturned and several windows blown out of the farmhouse.

During late June and early July, small raids were begun with the purpose, no doubt, of finding vulnerable spots and testing our air defences.

In late July the raids grew heavier and were mainly concentrated upon ports and shipping along the south coast.

In August and September came the full attack with massed raids which continued for several weeks. Hitler possibly thought that an all-out air attack would cause Britain to capitulate or at least "soften it up" enough to make invasion possible.

In October I witnessed a typical air attack by a lone raider on a small undefended town in the Midlands. That particular morning I journeyed from Kimbolton to the Rushden shop. The weather was atrocious, a high wind and driving rain kept people indoors and the normally busy High street in Rushden was almost deserted. About mid-morning, there were a series of heavy explosions followed by the crash of falling glass and flying masonry. Lights flickered for a moment and then went out. Hurrying into the street, I saw a thick cloud of smoke and dust hanging over the town, and overhead, an evil looking Nazi bomber flew beneath the scudding clouds.

It flew so low that I could pick out the German cross marked on the wings and I recognised the plane as a Dornier "Flying Pencil", so called because of its extremely slim shaped fuselage.

Fearing more bombs would be dropped, I took cover in a cellar under the shop. However, the Nazi pilot had released his full load and was apparently making a reconnoitre of the town to discover the extent of the damage he had caused. Recovering from the initial shock, I remembered my duties as a special constable and donning my tin-hat, set out to see the damage and render help where necessary.

When I reached the National Provincial Bank, pieces of masonry, blown from the roof of this building, lay scattered in the road and I helped to clear them on to the pavement to make way for passing traffic.

Walking down College Street, I found a crowd gathered outside Alfred street school, which had received a direct hit. Members of the A.R.P. and National Fire Service were already bringing out the shattered bodies of seven small children that lay buried among the tangled wreckage of bricks, desks and tables blown into the street.

It was a sickening and harrowing sight. Anxious parents arrived to receive news of their child’s, fate, and, if the child was safe, hurry it away from such a tragic scene.

A factory opposite to the school had also been hit and rescue operations were in progress.

Further down the High Street, blood spattered on the pavement showed where a pedestrian had been cut by flying glass from a shop window. A fish and chip shop on the corner of Duck Street was completely demolished, but by a lucky chance, no one was in the shop when the bomb dropped.

A married couple in Church Street had an amazing escape from death or injury, when a bomb ploughed through the roof of their house, and, plunging deep into the ground, failed to explode.

A tiny woman almost eighty years of age was knocked off her feet by blast and picking herself up she shook her fist at the bowser exclaiming, "Just you wait, you'll pay for this". She epitomised the scorn and resistance the British felt for their ruthless adversary.

The Nazis assembled barges for invasion at Channel ports in France, Belgium and Holland. The R.A.F. and Royal Navy so harassed the embarkation ports, that the invasion was postponed and the air attack temporarily halted. The damage which the Luftwaffe had inflicted on ports, docks and civilian property was enormous, but the Nazis had lost a great number of skilled pilots and air crew and the losses were more than they could sustain. Consequently the massed daylight raids were called off in Mid-September. They then resorted to night attacks and hundreds of bombers dropped their loads on towns which ware still afire after the previous nights bombing.

The first great raid outside London fell upon Coventry, the chief centre of the aircraft industry. That night, I was patrolling the newly constructed airfield with another constable. It was the night of the full moon on November 14th. and we remarked on the tremendous air activity and the dozens of vapour trails high in the cloudless sky, all pointing towards the Midlands.

The drone of engines continued all night and in the early morning, two very heavy bombs fell near the airfield runway, violently shaking the house, blowing down our cardboard blackout screen on one of the windows at the rear of the house, and fetching us out of bed into the dugout in the garden.

News of a devastating raid on Coventry reached us in the morning and shocked the country. Over this small city of a quarter of a million people, for eleven hours, under a brilliant full moon, the German Bombers came and went. There were some four hundred of them and they started great fires in the city, the greatest around the Cathedral, which was almost totally destroyed, and a large part of the town lay in ruins.

It was an experience without precedent in the history of any British town and a terrible test of its defences.

The city's essential services were for a time completely disorganised, transport at a standstill, the railway system unusable, almost half the houses damaged or destroyed, the railway sidings badly hit and all roads within a mile of the town impassable.

It was one of the worst incidents of the war and the dazed and battered population had been tested to the limits of human endurance.

Our small village police force received instructions to patrol the air base at night and keep an eye on any interlopers. The base commanded a view of a wide area and when a heavy raid was in progress on London or the cities of Birmingham and Coventry, we could see a pyrotechnical display on the distant horizon and hear faint reverberations coming down on the wind. We formed some estimation of the ferocity of the attacks when we calculated that London and Coventry were fifty miles as the crow flies.

During a concentrated raid on Birmingham, we were woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of an aircraft flying low overhead. It was obviously in difficulty, for the engines were roaring ominously and on drawing back the curtains of our bedroom window, we saw a bright red glow and vivid flames in the sky.

The next morning we heard that an enemy bomber had been hit by anti-aircraft fire and crashed at Colmworth, some five miles away. It fell on soft ploughland and plunged into the groans with such force, that it formed a deep crater, and when I arrived at the scene of the crash, smoke was still ascending from the excavation.

Parts of the plane were scattered around and among the debris I noticed the severed hand of one of the Nazi airmen, cleanly cut off at the wrist, with a wedding ring on one of the beautifully manicured fingers.

Owing to the constant bombing of London it was decided to move the B.B.C. Symphony Orchestra to Bedford and use the Corn Exchange there for concerts. The limited amount of accommodation in this hall resulted in tickets for these concerts being scarce and although my brother and I made an application for a couple for one particular concert, we were unsuccessful in getting them, however, a B.B.C. steward living in Rushden promised to get us seats if we helped him in his duties, and after showing members of the audience to their places, we were able to relax and listen to the music of Beethoven and Bruckner. Bruckner's Third Symphony emphasised the gaps in my musical education. It was my introduction to the music of this humble Austrian peasant.

Both my brother and cousin being called up for National Service, I considered it expedient to move to Rushden. This town and the surrounding countryside provided the greater part of our trade.

Just before I left Kimbolton, the air base became active; a training group of Wellington bombers arrived and occupied the new quarters. Among the flying officers stationed there, and for whom we were privileged to make clothes, was Guy Gibson, later to attain fame by breaching the Eider dam.

On looking back to those days, I am amazed how I stood up to the strain of shop duties during the day and air-raid warden duties often late into the night and early morning. The warning siren sounded regularly soon after dark during 1940 and 1941 and on hearing it I joined my warden group in a hut situated off the High Street. There we remained, sometimes until four in the morning playing cards, telling stories, or listening to the Nazi planes droning overhead to bomb targets in the Midlands, wondering if we might be called upon to deal with an incident caused by explosive or incendiary bombs released when the enemy aircraft were returning to their bases. The sound of the "all-clear" siren was sweet music and greeted with a cheer and I hoped I might be able to snatch two or three hours sleep before returning to business by nine in the morning. We welcomed foggy nights, for then the enemy air-fleets were grounded.

Russia and America had now been drawn into the war and increasing numbers of American soldiers and airmen came into the district. This part of the country was occupied by the American Eighth Bomber Group flying fortresses and Liberators. Huge bomber bases were constructed wherever the terrain was suitable, there being no fewer than seven within a twelve mile circumference of Rushden.

Our air attacks were now really hurting the Nazis, as one could imagine on seeing the vast U.S. air-fleets assembling in the early morning sky and adding fuel to the already blazing towns in the Ruhr and Central Germany. They were exacting a terrible retribution for the German attacks on London and Coventry.

The R.A.F. by now had tremendous striking power and as dusk fell, hundreds of Halifax bombers ranged over Berlin and deep into enemy territory. One had an uneasy feeling when one remembered the great weight of bombs carried by our own planes in the semi-darkness of early morning. There were inevitable collisions and crashes and hundreds of lives were lost before the bombers left our shores.

CHAPTER 33

During 1944 I kept a diary and wrote the following introductory, and, as it happened, prophetic words:-

As this year is likely to be a fateful one in the world's history, I shall record salient items of personal, local and national interest.

The violent conflict now raging between the Allies on one side and Germany and Japan on the other, will in all probability reach a decisive phase during 1944. In any case, great events will certainly occur, including in all likelihood, the Allied invasion of Europe, of which the present intense bombing attacks are a precursor.

The powerful Russian army is poised and ready to attack in the east, while the Anglo-American forces with a wealth of armaments of all kinds, are equally ready in the west. The whole country has become a vast armed camp. Almost every wood and spinney conceals military supply-dumps containing shells, bombs and army vehicles of all types. Every military airfield is packed with aircraft and gliders. Millions of men - Americans, British, Belgians, French, Canadians, Australians, Poles, Dutch, Norwegians etc., await the signal to invade Hitler's Europe.

These world shaking events will determine the economic and political course of the world for a considerable time ahead. Not until the brutal and barbaric Nazi philosophy has been banished from the earth will there be any hope of lasting peace.

In this diary I have inserted items of interest throughout the year.

January 5th. Flying Fortresses set off on morning raid from Podington airfield. We lay in bed and watched them take off with lights flashing. Two collided and fell near Thurleigh, bombs exploded and shook the house. Another Fortress crashed at Covington and set fire to stacks and barns.

January 12th. News in the evening newspaper that John Wilson, a friend of mine, had been awarded the Military Cross for gallantry in action in Italy.

January 25th. Austerity ban lifted from men's suits: they can contain as many pockets as are required and turn-ups allowed on the trousers.

February 3rd. Received papers for compulsory entry into the Auxiliary Fire Service. I protested that my legs were not strong enough for ladder work. After seeing my attempted ascent of a ladder, the fire chief exclaimed, "Come down off that ladder, the b----- fire will be out before you get to the top".

I was drafted into Civil Defence as part-time warden.

February 12th. Siren sounded at nine o'clock at night. Bombs heard falling in the distance. Long queues at greengrocers waiting to buy oranges. One pound per head allowed for adults on production of ration book. Enjoyed the first orange we had eaten for over three years.

February 22nd. Two Flying Fortresses collided above Rushden. One fell near Irthlingborough and one near Stanwick. Bombs exploded on one of them and shook the town. Debris and maps from one of the planes showered down on factory where the wife was working.

Siren sounded in early morning: raid on London by over 150 German planes.

February 22nd. Heavy raid on London at night. Watched the gun-barrage in the distance. Sky full of flashes and air pulsated with rumble of guns and bombs.

March 24th. Bad air crash at Yelden. Fortress taking off from Chelveston base with full bomb load fell on the village, nineteen persons killed including two children asleep in a bungalow. I had been talking to the children in the shop the previous morning.

March 28th. Bought five lemons, the first we had seen for three years.

Clark Gable, the film star, called at Rushden shop and ordered two uniforms from us. He is a captain flying with, a detachment of Fortresses on photographic missions over Germany. His appearance at the shop caused a sensation among the girls in the town.

Duchess of Gloucester's secretary wrote to say that the Duchess was pleased with the corduroy outfit that we made for Prince William.

April 4th. Fetched chocolate ration for the month. It amounts to 16 bars at 2d a bar and equals 2 bars per person per week.

April 20th. Car in which I was travelling almost hit by a barrage balloon which had broken away from its moorings at Cardington in a gale. An unpleasant moment when I saw the huge inflated "sausage" coming straight at me. I pulled the car up sharply and trailing ropes from the balloon caught in telephone wires a few yards in front of me. The tugging of the monster pulled a telephone post out of the ground. Reported the incident to the policeman at Grafham.

May 5th. At Kimbolton and busy taking orders from pilots of the American Air Force stationed at the base.

A crash there on the previous day and the resulting explosion blew several panes of glass out of the workroom windows.

May 11th. Warden's lecture at night. We had whiffs of chlorine, mustard and phosgene gases so that we could recognise the smell if they were used and take the necessary precautions. We were warned by the lecturer that the Nazis might drop gas bombs as retaliation for our massive bombing of their own country.

June 6th. D. Day. The Allied invasion of Europe started and we were awoken at four in the morning by the roar of bombers setting off to raid targets in France. Great activity in the air. Planes towing gliders formated in a huge circle in the area and then headed towards France. As soon as one group of Fortresses had landed at neighbouring airfields, another group took off and this intense activity continued all day.

June 16th. Germans use pilotless planes on raids over southern England and London. Heavy casualties and damage caused by this new menace.

July 6th. Wardens meeting to ask for volunteers to go to London and relieve local wardens who were having a gruelling time dealing with the flying bomb casualties. A large number of evacuees from London billeted in Rushden.

King George, Queen Mary and Princess Elizabeth visited Kimbolton to inspect the air base.

July 11th. About 200 mothers and 500 children evacuees brought from London. They arrived at 8.30 in the morning and I helped with their luggage and in making up beds for them in the Wesleyan church rest-room. They were tired and dishevelled having had to live for weeks in shelters to avoid flying bombs.

July 14th. Had narrow escape from death or injury when cutting the lawn at the front of the house. A piece of metal fell from a shot-up Fortress passing over the house and returning from a raid. The piece of debris missed me by three of four yards, making a hole in the concrete path and finishing up in Wymington road after skidding along the path. I phoned the U.S. military police and one of them collected the piece of wreckage and told me that the plane had landed safely at Podington in spite of the badly damaged condition.

August 3rd. Bad air crash at Wymington. Plane sliced off the top of a tree and fell only a hundred yards from the village. Seven airmen killed and villagers commended for their bravery in pulling some of the crew from the blazing wreckage.

September 7th. After five years of blackout the government ease restrictions. No blackout blinds necessary in houses; the ordinary peacetime curtains sufficient if they are not too thin. Modified street lighting adopted and extinguished on the sounding of the alert. No more Home Guard call-ups. September 17th. A few street lights allowed to burn at maximum brightness for the first time since the war started.

September 29. American servicemen stationed at Kimbolton will pay a shilling each for fresh hen's eggs.

October 13th. Heavy explosion at one o'clock in the morning. Flying bomb fell near Thurleigh windmill. A hen's egg is quite a luxury in these frugal days. Have not eaten one for over a month. Make do with dried eggs, a particularly horrible alternative for the real thing.

December 6th. American staff-sergeant called and left us a supply of empty packing cases for use as firewood. I supplied him with a sleeping bag in exchange. Warmth from the burning wood most acceptable as coal shortage is acute.

December 16th. Much glass blown out of shop windows in Rushden High Street when a bomber blew up when crashing.

December 17th. Battle of the Bulge begins. Germans achieve startling success and break through the Allied front, advancing up to fifteen miles.

December 21st. Nazis advance forty miles into Belgium and claim 20,000 prisoners. Allies seem unable to sterm the advance. A very different situation to that which we were led to expect earlier in the year when there seemed to be every indication that the war would be over by Christmas.

December 24th. Great shortage of paper. We were not allowed to wrap up customer's purchases and unless they brought their own wrapping paper, they had to carry the goods home without any covering. Buzz bomb fell at Woodford waking us up about 5.30 a.m.

December 29th. Battle of the Bulge over and we regain a little ground.

My diary for 1944 was much interspersed with activity in the air and air crashes. It was the air war that almost dominated our lives during this phase of the war.

The American population in the immediate neighbourhood almost equalled the native population and we were in greater peril from crashes and collisions among home-based bombers and fighters than from enemy action. The small town of Rushden, however, suffered badly from Nazi bombing during the early part of the war, over a dozen people losing their lives in three raids: a greater number of fatal casualties than the remainder of Northamptonshire suffered.

The heavy bomb that fell in Roberts Street, Rushden, had a curious effect. It was of the fragmentation type and made a very small crater. The exceptionally fierce blast blew out over four hundred windows in the town.

The bomb fell quite close to us and when we emerged from the shelter, we expected to find considerable damage done to the house. The only damage, however, was to the garage roof, which, being made of glass, had fallen with a terrifying crash on to the car beneath.

The morning following the raid, Lord Haw Haw, the treacherous broadcaster on the German radio, gave out the news that Bedford had been raided in the night. The raider had strayed about a dozen miles farther north and mistaken Rushden for its larger neighbour.

There was a tragic occurrence in York Road, Rushden, when, during a night raid, an enemy aircraft dropped a canister of flares. One of these flares penetrated the roof of a house in this street and set the house on fire. It was a blazing inferno in a few minutes and the four occupants were trapped in their bedrooms. All four were badly burned and one child succumbed shortly afterwards from suffocation. The father of the family was removed to hospital but he also died from burns.

This period of the war was a time of extreme scarcity in every commodity and I had difficulty in obtaining cloth and outfitting stock. I paid visits to London in search of something to sell and once returned with six neckties as reward for a train journey of one hundred and twenty miles and numerous calls on warehouses in the city.

Londoners were suffering at that time from the flying bomb menace and underground stations were packed with bedding and sleeping bags wherever space was available. The wail of sirens sounded when I was in a warehouse, but no one seemed to notice them and although the thunder of a flying bomb in the distance threatened the already shattered city, business continued as usual.

The purchase of clothes was not limited so much by shortage of money as shortage of clothing coupons. Twenty six coupons were needed for a three-piece suit and this amount swallowed the whole amount for six months. A shirt required six coupons, socks two and a necktie one.

During December 1944, the Halle Orchestra was invited to give a concert in the Windmill Hall in Rushden, organised by E.N.S.A. The concert provided an entrancing interlude in our otherwise frugal and austere war-torn lives.

The conductor was Anthony Collins and the leader of the orchestra, Laurence Turner. The programme began with the overture A Mid-summer Nights’ Dream by Mendelssohn and brought fairyland into our jaded existence for a brief instant. The mystery of forests and moonlit glades was conveyed to us by this incomparable overture. It is still one of the wonders of music and an almost unparalleled feat of the imagination.

Mendelssohn translated into sound the magic of Shakespeare's immortal play, capturing the evanescent beauty on the wing of enchanting sound.

Next came Mozart's exquisite Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. It is the perfect chamber symphony, standing unique and matchless between the string quartet and the classical symphony.

The second part of the concert consisted of one work - Beethoven's Eroica. This noble symphony received rapturous applause at its conclusion. For the majority of the audience, it was their first experience of this great work, and when it was over, we stumbled out into the darkness of the blackout, uplifted and revitalised, the powerful rhythms still beating triumphantly through our minds.

In 1945, the war moved swiftly towards a close. The German armies were crumbling under hammer-blows inflicted by Allied forces on both eastern and western fronts and on Tuesday, May 8th., the Daily Telegraph bore as its heading in thick black letters, the news that we had been waiting nearly six years to read - Germany Capitulates. It was V.E. Day!

The war in Europe was over: complete and crushing victory had, in the words of King George 5th., crowned Britain's unrelenting struggle against Nazi Germany.

On May 4th., my father had died. This humble and kindly man, who walked in the paths of gentleness and was impervious to anything mean or base, ended his quiet life in Bedford, during the weekend that saw the end of the war with Germany. He loved the beautiful, solitary countryside around Kimbolton. He was one of those persons with whom one could be silent and yet feel no strain.

I walked many, many miles with him deep into the woods and fields, both of us enjoying the serenity and peace of the rural scene: the sweet smelling hay, the tang of the damp earth, or the song of the birds, in a complete and satisfying silence.

On the other hand, he could be a gay and cheerful companion. He had a fund of humorous anecdotes and a mind stored with many whimsical verses, which he was always ready to unfold, both at home and at socials and concerts.

He was buried in the beautiful cemetery at Kimbolton on V.E. day and when the funeral cortege passed down the High Street, the village was gay with bunting and the bells ringing a merry peal. In the evening bonfires blazed and fireworks cleaved the sky.

There was still Japan to reckon with, but for us in England, the war was over, we could, after nearly six years of upheaval, go to bed at night without anxiety or fear of disturbance.

E. W. Abington,
Bedford.
1965-1966.