91热爆

This story has been contributed to the website by Alison Tebbutt, Derby CSV Action Desk, on behalf of Mr J Bennett. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

In 1940, I was employed by Derby Co-operative Society as a shop assistant and was at the grocery shop on London road opposite St Andrews Church.
On this particular morning I was going to work (as far as I can remember it would be August 1940) along Rosee Hill Street, and there had been an air raid the previous night and quite a few houses had been hit by bombs, so there was quite a lot of debris about.
When I arrived at the shop, the under manager Mr Ted Sharp was waiting, but the manager Mr Bentley had not arrived. We waited about 20 minutes and then Ted said to me 'you had better go and see what has happened to the boss.'
He only lived nearby in Regent Street, so it wasn't far to go. When I arrived at his house, it was completely flattened, having received a direct hit by a bomb. A neighbour said that Mr Bentley was in the DRI but Mrs Bentley and daughter Sheila had both been killed.
Mr Bentley recovered and was later a local councillor.

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