Wartime Woodborough 1939-1945
An extract from a recorded interview with Mannie Foster by David Rose
David Rose: Just touching briefly on the war years, did you see anything of the war in Woodborough – I mean, was there any, sort of, stray bombs dropped along the village?
Mannie Foster: Oh yes, there was the night in August 1942 when there was a huge lot of incendiaries dropped, and of course luckily, they were dropped from north to south and they went across the village just where there were the least population, what we call down the Nordale where Hilda Burton’s house is now, and of course, that was not built then, and of course Pinfold Close was not there or any of those houses, it was very thinly populated just in that part of the village luckily.
But, there was a barn belonging to Mr Bernard Wright that caught fire, and also there was a tree stump in the hedge right at the corner of the Little Fayleys at the top of the Warren where Middups lived then, and my brother Charlie lived there after that. But I remember this tree stump and it kept shooting up sparks, you see, like fireworks, and that was after all the other incendiaries had been put out.
And Mr Saunders was at the School House then, he was rather distressed about this because he thought perhaps if they came back they would see all this, but there was no flames or anything, it was just sparks shooting up like fireworks.
There were three high explosive bombs dropped from the direction of Epperstone Park, and one was dropped in a field just this side of Epperstone kennels and another one in the low land near the Dover Beck and then the third was dropped in the field, well, next to where you are on Lingwood Lane, up towards Ploughman Wood and Mr Edwin Spencer’s horse was killed with that bomb. Yes.
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