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I walked Carlton Road many a time during 1965-1971, my boyfriend lived there on a farm. I thought some of the house`s were so `posh`. I had previously lived in a busy town so was in my element living in the country. Gibbs stores sold just about everything you needed, there was also a butchers shop and The Blue Anchor Pub. I worked at AES (Air Engine Services) which changed to Hants & Sussex, that was next to a petrol station, which has now gone. The little primary school and lovely church. Bannisters the Bakery was further up on the common which closed down some time ago. I also remember Cricket being played on the common. I thought Blindley Heath was a lovely village as was South Godstone where I lived, which in fact Calrlton Road actually came under. Happy times and memories!!

Gibbs stores and the Dane on a train.

I have never visited Blindley Heath, my childhood during and after the Second World War was spent in and around Tunbridge Wells, where my mother, and both grandparents lived.

It was the spring of 1944, my father, Max, who was in a reserved profession as production manager of N. Greening & Sons in Warrington had managed to get released and volunteered to join the RAF VR with the hope of being one of Dowding's fighter pilots. However, he was too old for pilot training, and so was drafted the be trained as a flight engineer on a Lancaster heavy bomber squadron, first with N° 9 Squadron and then on the formation of 630 Squadron at East Kirkby: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_East_Kirkby

My mother: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muriel_Dowding,_Baroness_Dowding and I had moved away from the bombing to stay in an aunt's cottage in Kilve, near Bridgewater, Somerset. I remember my father had visited on a short leave and then on 22nd May a telegram arrived with the news that the Lancaster had not returned. The search for more information in those dark days of war was difficult and unsuccessful. Had the 7-man crew escaped and were in hiding or in a PoW camp somewhere, of had they been killed?
The answer did not come until 1946 with a chance meeting with Roy Farrant, the owner of GIBBS stores, who was the husband of my maternal grandmother, Hilda. Roy was on a train and in the same carriage was a Dane. Naturally the conversation turned to how the war had gone in Denmark, where upon the Dane said we had a tragedy, one of your great bombers crashed in a field near us, it was in the early hours of 22 May 1944: https://www.airmen.dk/pdfs/p324DBC46-2021.pdf
At last we had news of the fate of my father and the crew of Lancaster LL950: https://www.airmen.dk/a014240.htm

Each year the local community of Vesterlund hold a service on 2 May at the well maintained memorial crash site. In 2015 I recounted the mission of RAF Bomber Command on the night of 21-22 May 1944: https://www.airmen.dk/a014240.htm

It was the Dane on a train and the owner of Gibbs stores that provided the long awaited answer!

For more on this story read: https://thepoetlaura-eate.blogspot.com/2015/10/beauty-not-beast-life-of-muriel-lady.html