THE events of July 9, 1943 are so vivid for Beatrice Weller, even at the age of 92, that she can still remember what the weather was like. As she sat at her home in East Grinstead High Street with her two sisters, waiting for her mother to return, she heard the familiar sound of an air raid siren.
Like many other people on that day, she was not particularly panicked by the noise, because she expected, as was usually the case, that the London-bound German bombers would pass overhead and not give the little town of East Grinstead a second thought.
But it wasn't long before "all hell was let loose". She said: "I lived opposite Sackville College in the High Street. I remember it was an overcast, miserable day. It was coming up to 5pm when I heard the bomber overhead. Then it seemed all hell had been let loose. I could hear the bomber overhead and there was a lot of noise. I said to my sister, 'I'd better go and look for mother'. Mum got off the bus at about 5pm at the bottom of town."
Beatrice (pictured) who was 23 at the time and three months pregnant, opened her door to a scene of destruction. In a frantic bid to find her mother, she tried to walk along the High Street but found her way blocked by boulders of masonry and outbreaks of fire. Instead she tried to go up Church Lane and then down Rices Hill but again found her route cut off, and made a grisly discovery. She said: "I could see shops all ablaze. When I was going down Rices Hill I could see a limb under some rubble. I turned back and went another way. There were a lot of children in the cinema that day because Hopalong Cassidy was playing and that was suitable for children. Several of the people who died were only children.
"The siren had gone and they flashed on the cinema screen that there was an air raid warning. But people got complacent. People thought that because it hadn't happened previously, there was nothing really to worry about."
Fortunately Beatrice found her mother, a little dishevelled having dived under a counter in one of the shops. Beatrice, who now lives in Hollands Way, East Grinstead, added: "Eventually we moved to Chester for a while. I'd had enough of the doodlebugs, which started in 1944. I knew a lot of mothers whose children were killed in the bombing and everyone knew someone who had been hurt. I do feel very lucky."
