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Home <> Lifestory Library <> Explore By Location <> <> <> I Saw The Ill-fated Airship




  Contributor: Hazell BowserView/Add comments



I remember seeing the ill-fated R101 heading in a north-westerly direction, wrote Hazell Bowser (nee Howden). It was the first airship I had ever seen, and the last!

It must have been a Saturday morning because my mother was paying the baker (yes, it was delivered in those days) and I was standing with her at the front door of our house in Ilford, Essex.

The house faced west and the airship passed to our right, i.e. north, moving in an Easterly direction. I think I must have been four. Or perhaps I've juggled my age to match the R101, but I do know that both dates fitted, genuinely, not conveniently.

I can visualise the whole scene as I write this snapshot flashback. One would like to think this is an accurate report but details may be less so. Hope it can be verified even if only to boost my confidence in my old age.

I went to South Park Infants & Junior School at the time in question, but subsequently to Barking Abbey School.

How well, and accurately, I remember the evacuation -- 1st. September, with the school, to Weston-super-Mare. It's surprising how few remember we were all ready to leave in 1938, but that turned out to be a rehearsal.

I still have the lid of the suitcase I used, with the school's number inside --B19. That was later the number of a USA bomber aircraft but I don't think we were in their mind when naming it!

Hazell Bowser, 2002
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