Remembering Rushden's bombing 80 years after deadly air raid unleashed 'fury and evil of war'

A plaque marking the 80th anniversary of the devastating bombing of Rushden has been unveiled to commemorate the deaths of four shoe factory workers.

A total of 30 bombs rained down on the town on the morning of October 3, 1940, wreaking havoc, death and destruction including one on employees hard at work at John Cave & Sons in College Street.

Horace Sanders, 56, Reginald Hall, 31, Frank Pricket, 35, and Stanley Clark, 28, were killed when two high explosive bombs smashed through the roof into the clicking room. Seven schoolchildren also died in the bombings.

Members of Rushden and District History Society gathered yesterday (Friday) at the site of the former shoe factory - now a Wilkinsons store - to see the new plaque with the names of the factory worker victims.

Society member and local historian Eric Fowell, a 12-year-old schoolboy at the time of the attack, was in a maths lesson over the road at Alfred Street School when the bombs struck.

He said: "It was the most terrible noise. Flakes of paint fell down from the ceiling like snow. All the slates on the roof jumped about.

"Our teacher Mr Hales told us to get under our desks and then we started to sing. Then our headmaster Pop Lawrence ordered us into the air raid shelters.

"The bomb was dropped at 10.12am. It stopped the clock in the main hall - I've still got that clock."

Bombs that had hit the school and the factory were among eighteen high explosive bombs and twelve incendiaries that had been dropped in a line across the town.

The next day's Rushden Echo and Argus reported: 'The fury and evil of war broke suddenly upon a small Midlands industrial town [Rushden] on Thursday morning, bringing the horror of Nazidom to workers and schoolchildren, and searing the streets with dust and rubble of destruction. The air was split by hard, crackling explosions – one after another in a continuous salvo – and then the raider fled.'

Many employees were cut by flying glass or injured by falling debris and people from the town rushed to the scene to help and to collect their children.

Mr Fowell, 92, said: "My dad came to get me. I thought my sister who was in the infants school was in the bombed room.

"The High Street was covered in broken glass and then my sister came running up the road towards us. My dad picked her up and put her on the bike.

"He told me not to look back but I did. The damage was absolutely tremendous.

"The gas, electricity and water mains were all hit. I remember seeing flames shooting 15 to 20 foot high into the air in Shirley Road."

Joan Botterill, now 85, was a five-year-old schoolgirl at the time of the bombing and was in the same class as Mr Fowell's sister Jean.

Over the past few years, the retired teacher has been working with Alfred Street Junior School's Year 6 pupils on a Second World War project - this term recording her memories on video.

She said: "I had been at the school for three weeks when it happened. It's like it was yesterday. We just heard a big bang. The teacher said 'get under your desks' and we sang nursery rhymes.

"It was lucky that there hadn't been a warning otherwise far more children would have been killed as one of the bombs hit the school's air raid shelters.

"I believe that God spared my life that day and I have tried to live the best life I could."

As well as the plaques marking the events of that day 80 years ago, a memorial garden was built ten years ago, partly funded by money given to the school by Mr Fowell.

Craig Butler, deputy headteacher, said: "It is part of our school's history. This year we have added seven statues of children in the garden.

"To be able to draw on the experiences of people who were children at the time is an amazing thing for our pupils. This week each class has lit seven candles for each of the children who died."

The children who died in the bombing were Cecilia Janet Chase, seven, Margaret Joyce Dodd, seven, Denis James Felce, seven, Muriel Ethel Moye, seven, Roy O’Dell, eight, Lorna Mavis Pain, eight, and eight-year-old Donald Edward Scrivens.

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