Doodlebug In Central Avenue

A Memory of Welling.

I lived at 6 Camborne Road, Welling with my mother Hermine Wright and my grandparents Fred and Elsie Wright from 1943 to 1948. I attended East Wickham Infants School, where my teacher was Miss Sharp.

I think the year must have been 1944, the summer of the doodlebugs. It seems there are records of all bombing incidents at Kew, and when I next come to England later this year I will try to find them.

One morning I was sitting in my push-chair outside the Welling baker and general grocery shop in Central Avenue, on the right, just past Station Approach which is on the left. I think the shop is now a cafe. My grandma was inside the shop. I heard the sound of a plane and, saw one quite high overhead. It was, in fact, probably a German VI flying bomb. Bricks started to fall from the shop parapet. I thought someone was playing games. Next I remember blackness, but no sound. When I was again aware, my grandmother was standing by me, her hair and face white with plaster. She was laughing, and showed me a tin of sardines which she had been holding at the time of the explosion, completely flattened by the blast while her hand was unhurt.

The shop had lost its upper storey. The dome of the cinema on the other side of the road was without its copper cladding, and a railway signal was lying on its side on the embankment. There were bricks scattered over the pavement and two (I think, but perhaps three) men lay on the pavement, feet nearest the Road, covered with black sheets.

I was very upset at the sight of their shiny black shoes protruding from the sheets, thinking how sad it was that they had polished their shoes, as my grandfather did every day, and were now dead and beyond enjoying their beautiful shinyness. A boy of about 14 was sitting amongst the broken Glass in the shop window, crying. His arm was open from wrist to elbow, and pouring blood. I think the bone was visible.

I had a slight scratch on my left knee. I must have been unconscious for some time because the bodies of the dead had been covered up. I remember the whole episode as a series of vivid pictures.

Christopher Wright


Added 26 February 2015

#337423

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