The following is an account of a  V-1 'flying bomb' which landed in the gardens between Gorseway and Rush Green Road:

For the past fifty-six years I had always believed it to have happened early in the morning sometime during 1943, but having referred to Peter Watt's book Hitler v Havering, the 'flying bomb' exploded at 7.16 am on 5th August 1944, and came down two gardens away [between Gorseway and Rush Green Road].

The events of the day are blurred.  I must have been concussed because the first thing I remember was a smell of earth and seeing daylight coming from the entrance of the shelter, which seemed odd until I realised the blast wall had gone.  I then saw my mother coming from the house, holding a kitchen towel to her face.  She had come looking for me.  When she removed the towel I saw that my mother had severe facial injuries - she nearly died at Rush Green Hospital undergoing surgery later.  My sister who was also in the house received burns to her face and upper part of the body, from the bomb blast.   I learned later that they had left the shelter and gone into the house to make breakfast.

Further recollections of that day are piecemeal.  The tidy garden and fencing gone, just earth and debris, the shelter just bare metal and, looking towards our house, the windows and roof tiles gone and the roof timbers at a crazy angle.  Then - it seemed as if in slow motion - the back wall fell out and the house collapsed.  A kindly neighbour bringing me a cup of tea from a WVS canteen van in the road nearby.   Of seeing my father who had arrived from work after being informed by police, before he went on to see my mother and sister in hospital.  The rest of that day is a complete blank, I don't even remember where I slept that night.

I have often wondered since that day is there such a thing as premonition, because for months previously I had re-occurring dreams of bomb damaged houses. The damage that happened that day was identical to those dreams.

Ray Smith, September 2000.

¹ There is another account of this same incident from Fred Chapman, who at the time was on an errand in Rush Green Road.