One Friday evening in June 1944 we were at the Church Youth Club in the Wykeham Hall.   It was my task to get there early, set up the music system for dancing, arrange the tables for table tennis, and do other odd jobs.  At about eight o’clock the siren went and soon we heard a 'buzz bomb' approaching.  The engine noise (they had a pulse jet engine that made extremely heavy vibrations), became louder and louder.  It also sounded very low as if it was going to crash with the engine still running.

We all threw ourselves along the walls of the hall and as tightly under the wall benches as we could.  I think we were sure it would land right on us.  Lucky for us, but unhappily for the people along Victoria Road, the V-1 hit the embankment just east of Romford Station.  If it had not done so, it would no doubt have continued to the Market Place and who knows what could have happened.  All the pubs, the Friday evening strollers, and so on.  As it was, I read later that more than 500 houses were damaged and several casualties resulted.  The old open roof beams in the Wykeham Hall had not been dusted for years.  I remember clouds of dust falling on us and we probably looked like dirty snowmen when we walked outside to try to see where the thing had landed.¹

Geoffrey Styles, June 2001.

¹ The book Hitler v Havering records that the V-1 hit the railway embankment at 20:15 on 30 June 1944.  It had been badly damaged by anti-aircraft fire, and narrowly missed a bus.  Thankfully, most of the 34 casualties were relatively light.