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I remember the Germans used to drop flares looking for targets like the gunnery range due west of Birch Rd. I remember one night we were in the shelter when one was coming down towards the field behind us. All the neighbours ran out, the men with buckets of water, the women with scissors. When it landed the men put out the flare while the women cut up the parachute. The next job was back to the shelter and out with the sewing machine to make new underwear.
The next day the police and ARP came round looking for the parachute. They were looking for one part of it, and that had just been made into a handkerchief for me. It was a square with, I think, the manufacturers name and a swastika emblem. The police seemed happy to find it. They took it saying I would get it back but I never saw it again.
My mother told me that Mrs Bond at No. 30 (formerly Mrs Dorrington) was at her machine making undies from the parachute silk when her husband told her "You're not going to wrap anything around your A*** that came from Germany."
She also reminded me that we could hear the orders being shouted out to the gunnery crews at the gunnery range in the fields between Birch Rd and Whalebone Lane North.
William (Bill) DALE, March 2001.
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