WARTIME MEMORIES

The road from Bracon Ash to Flordon Station was widened in 1939 so vehicles could pass in case Norwich & Trowse were put out of action in which case Flordon station and its sidings would become a loading/unloading point (Rex Webster)

On the home front, most of the men were ARP wardens....

Don Carlton remembered the army huts at Hapton Hall in WW2, and the searchlights that threw wide beams over Flordon village. One day a German plane was caught in the lights and dropped its bombs, one on each side of Long Lane.

During WW2 a German pilot bailed out over Flordon and came down by parachute. Margaret Peachment, who lived in a cottage in The Street took him in and was very kind to him gave him a cup of tea. He was taken away and detained and Mrs Peachment told off! But she kept the parachute and used it to make a wedding dress for Connie Cadman and underwear for all the family!

Daisy's cottage on fire (photo supplied by Simon Dunham)
Daisy's cottage on fire (photo supplied by Simon Dunham)

Most items falling from the sky were far more dangerous. Daisy Moss's house went up in flames (above) when a USAAF plane crashed nearby in Hapton. Daisy herself escaped because she happened to be in the outside toilet at the time, but found herself wedged in by the propeller of 'Sneezy', the Thunderbolt flown by Don McKibben - it had landed in her garden, blocking the door! Daisy was rescued by Mrs Lemon, a neighbour, and later her house was rebuilt; Don parachuted to safety; but 'Sneezy' was no more....  Read the full story here

Simon Dunham, who researched the Thunderbird crashes and supplied the photo shown above, also heard the story of two sisters who lived in a cottage on the Bracon Ash road, opposite the Hapton turn, now replaced with a post-war bungalow: 'Two sisters lived there after evacuation from the East End of London. They told me as a 7 year old the full story of the Thunderbird crashes and how her son John came home with a pannier full of .50 calibre ammunition, which was then kept in the cupboard by the side of the fire. When her husband got back from leave he was not happy that such a hoard of large calibre ammunition was lying in a cupboard next to the fire and he tossed it into the "bottomless pit" next to the cottage. The pit is still there and I know I went hunting for the ammunition as a kid in that huge deep pit, but it was too dangerous.'

Simon also wrote: 'The was a German bomb which dropped and exploded on the left of Long Lane as you travel past the Church entrance towards Mulbarton. Also there was a jet bomber came down in the woods on the left on the same road around half way down.' The bomb is probably the one remembered by Don Carlton (above). 

MORE MEMORIES WANTED!!

Flordon History
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