We never could tell the difference between the warning siren and the sound of the all-clear, which caused a bit of confusion! Our shelter was an area under the stairs and we were convinced it would just splinter and fall on top of us if a bomb hit. Nevertheless, we put a mattress under there and would all huddle together when the warning sounded. There'd be Charlie, myself, Anna, and our evacuee - she was a bag of nerves and used to scream and cry all the time.
One night we heard this buzzing, whining noise outside. When Charlie looked out in the morning, there was a fin from a bomb lying on our tiles and an unexploded bomb in a neighbour's farmyard opposite. Another bomb came down at the back of Parsloe Farm, by the cow shed. Three bombs fell on Rodbourne that night but, thankfully, none went off. The bomb disposal squad swiftly removed the first two but the one at Parsloe Farm had buried itself deep in the ground.
At the time, Charlie's parents had a deaf and dumb man called Norman Harding working for them. He'd been with them for years so, fortunately, Charlie could understand his sign language. He came running from behind the cow shed waving his arms and pointing. Charlie, who'd gone up to Parsloe Farm to see his parents, realised what was wrong and notified the police. When the bomb disposal squad arrived, they evacuated everybody from the top end of Rodbourne, then took over Parsloe Farm for the next few days, so Charlie's parents came to stay with us at Pound Farm.
To retrieve the bomb from the deep hole it had made, the bomb disposal experts rigged up a tripod over the hole, then attached a winch rope to it to haul the bomb up. It started to wobble when it got to the top and the men were worried it would fall back down and explode. They eventually got it out without mishap and I went round to take these pictures. They warned everybody to keep their windows open, then took the bomb out to Malmesbury Common, and detonated it.
