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Peter Dudley was born in 1930 at Chingford in Essex. When the family moved to Coulsdon, which at that time fell within the Surrey boundary, he went to Purley County Grammar School, Old Coulsdon.
He did his National Service at RAF South Cerney, Gloucestershire and lived for a while at Swansea, South Wales.
In civvy street Peter worked as a sales rep in north of England and later in Perth area of Western Australia after he had emigrated. People he recalls particularly well from years ago include: Peter Clarke, Don Birch, Austin Adkin and Pamela Moore.
It would have been about the middle of 1944, during the school holidays. My mother had sent me up the road on my bike to buy a loaf of bread.
I was cycling home across the village green, blissfully nibbling away at the fresh new crusty loaf when I became aware of a voice shouting rather urgently.
I looked around unconcernedly and saw the local ARP warden -- on the other side of the green -- jumping up and down, pointing up to the sky and indicating that I get down.
I glanced up and in that moment came as close to having a heart attack as a 14 year-old is likely to because gliding along not 50 feet above me was a German flying bomb. Silver in colour and incredibly sinister looking it was virtually silent.
I must have thrown myself off my bike and on to the road. I have no memory of actually doing this, except that a scar still remains on my knee to this day.
I peeked through my fingers, which were tightly pressed to my head and could see the bomb getting lower and lower. I was petrified. Our house was half way down the hill and Mum was there alone.
Suddenly there was an almighty explosion and I was lifted off the ground and unceremoniously dumped back down again. I was conscious of a rumbling sensation passing over me, which I later learnt was the shockwave.
I jumped onto my bike and pedalled furiously down the road. As I crested the hill I sighed with relief when I saw the smoke rising from the top of a long garden backing on to the Farthing Downs.
But Mum was outside with our neighbour and they were both hysterical. All our house windows had been blown out but other than that we were safe.
It turned out Mum had been more worried about me as she thought, for some reason, that I had gone to the shops DOWN the hill!
Almost exactly 60 years after this I learned that the garden in which the bomb had crashed belonged to the Grandmother of my best friend from school. The blast had passed right over the top of her house and hadn't even cracked a single pane of glass.
Peter Dudley, Western Australia, 2002
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