My early recollections of Romford are of incendiary bombs and 'doodlebugs'.  I vividly remember being at my cousins birthday party at 19 Birch Road.  I was about 5 and we had been playing upstairs in an empty bedroom.  The other kids had gone downstairs leaving me scooting around the bedroom, the door of which had somehow got shut and I could not open it.  Well the next thing I can remember was a huge ball of flame going over the roof and all of a sudden my mother burst into the room, rushed us downstairs under the dining room table just before all the windows blew in!!!^1,2

Jim Hidden

¹ It has since been established that this event occurred at 19:05 on 26th March 1945, when a V-2 rocket broke up in mid-air. According to the book Hitler v Havering the warhead fell in the centre of Mawney Road, on the corner with Forest Road. 16 houses required demolition, there were 2 fatalities and 34 people required hospital treatment.
² This is one of three accounts of the same event - the other two being witnessed from Mawney Road and from North Street.