MAURICE HENRY BROWNING (1906-
Maurice and Lily Browning were living in Leatherhead during the Blitz of World War Two. They described what happened.
Interview date: 22 August 1979
Location: Leatherhead
Interviewer: Edwina Vardey
When our house was hit – Lily Browning
The Brownings have lived in Leatherhead since January 1940. Mrs Browning, will you tell us what happened on August 30 1940 when you were in the house at 12 noon?
Yes. Well I was in the house, expecting my mother, who was out with my small son to be coming up the road when the siren went. So I rushed out and helped her in with my son. I noticed two elderly ladies standing there and I said: “Would you like to come in?” They said they would.
The Sainsbury’s boy who was going to deliver to me and the postman opposite, I asked them if they would like to come in. They said no, they wanted to see the fun.
So we all came in here, that is three elderly ladies, myself and two young children. After that I decided that perhaps the ladies were rather nervous so I said: “I don’t think anything will happen around here but I had better pull these curtains.”
I went and pulled the velvet curtains. As I did so I noticed that the Canadian dental clinic people who were living in a house on the left of us jumped into a slip trench they had made and put their gas mask cases over their faces. I looked up and saw a plane whizzing across the sky and then the bombs started crashing down in one gigantic row really.
So I went on pulling the curtains but a piece of shrapnel came through the curtains and went between myself and my arm and lodged itself between the gramophone and a magazine that was on top of the gramophone. Another piece went across my head and a small piece cut my daughter’s forehead. My small son just turned round and said: “Naughty man made a mess.” But my daughter who was older was obviously distressed. So I thought I had better get her a drink and the little girl seemed to close up completely. I suppose it was shock.
Then the captain of the Canadian people came round and said: “Are you all right?” I said: “Yes, we are all right but there’s a bit of a mess.” So he said well come here. So I climbed over the doors which had been broken down and the Sainsbury’s boy and the postman were lying on the ground. He whispered to me: “I’m afraid they’re dead.”
Anyhow, after that, we all assembled again, put our heads together, decided I had better phone my husband and let him know what had happened and he decided he would come home.
We then packed up our things as a lady in Ashtead had said she would take us in for the time being. I then packed up all our things and the army lorry turned them all over and I stopped behind to write down the name and address for anybody that wanted to know where we had gone and rushed out, only to find that the lorry had gone without me.
I was at a little bit of a loss because at that time I just thought I’m sure I can find them. So I went down on the road and the siren went again and I took shelter again. An elderly man came in while I was there, the owner of the house, and said he had spent the morning in the ditch as he thought that was the best place to stay. He looked as though he had been in the ditch.
I got a bus and I got to Ashtead and I got to the famous Leg of Mutton but they were so full of people they couldn’t take me in. So I went down Woodvill Lane and that name struck a chord and I thought this is where they are.
Then the siren went again so I went into a lady’s house and I said we had been bombed out and could I stay there and she said yes. We chatted on the stairs. I then came of there and walked down the road and met three girls. Something seemed to say to me: “Speak to them.” So I said: “Have you seen an army lorry delivering children plus contents?” and they said: “Yes, they are at our house.”
I thought it was the most extraordinary thing that I should happen to hit on that one person. But to return to the funny side of it, my friend came round and said: “The soldiers are in a terrible way. Have you got a bottle of brandy?” So I said yes and gave them a bottle of brandy thinking that I met get it back. Of course I didn’t, not a drop. One of the soldiers unfortunately, although he wasn’t touched in any way, died of shock three weeks later.
In the process of drawing the curtains this piece that whizzed over my head, I hadn’t taken very much at the time but I kept smelling burning. I thought must be something on fire and that worried me more than anything else at that time. So I rushed round the house looking for burning. I couldn’t find anything but as is natural in these circumstances I put my hand to my head and found my hair had come away and I had been shaved across the front of my head. I therefore had a fringe for a few months.
Looking back I think the fact that the boy, whom I had got to know quite well, had died rather worried me. I thought it was so dreadful that a young boy of I suppose about 16 had been killed. He had been so keen to go into the army. I had said to him once, you are too young. He said: “Yes, I’m afraid it will all be over before I’m old enough to join in.” I didn’t know his name. I expect Sainsbury’s may it, I don’t know.
When our house was hit – Maurice Browning
This day you subsequently discovered that a whole cache of bombs were dropped,70?
We heard 72. We think they were attacked by one of our Hurricanes or Spitfires and that they unloaded their whole load in one spot.
Leatherhead was ringed?
It stretched from the Yarm Court estate here to the Warren estate at Ashtead, effectively a straight line. We had five or six bombs within about 50 yards of this house.
The architect of the house said the blast would have caused the house to “breathe”. In other words just to expand a little bit and then come together again. We still have cracks in the house which have been reappearing every time we have had it redecorated. We have had to have them papered over in order to stop them reappearing. Of course we had to have the front door remade, the middle door between the hall and the lounge remade, and the French windows at the back replaced entirely because they were twisted. One or two other windows also had to be replaced.
When you arrived the road was cut off by police and civil defence.
I was working with the Bank of England down at Winterbourne near Whitchurch in Hampshire and I got a message through that the house had been badly damaged. I wasn’t worried because the family was all right. I got the first train I could to Surbiton. I grabbed a taxi at Surbiton and another alert went on. The cabby said: “Do you want to go on, guvner? It’s all right by me.” I said yes I did.
I was stopped at the barrier at the top of the road by police and army but allowed to come through as my house was here and I didn’t know where my family was. I found the house in a terrible mess but as I came over the brow of the hill two delayed action bombs went off just on the other side of the trees. As there wasn’t an alert on at the time the time I wondered what the blazes it was.
Did you throw yourself to the ground?
I didn’t dare. You see there was no noise of bombs coming, no alert. I just turned round in astonishment to see part of the trees going up in the air. I examined the place afterwards and there were two holes big enough to put buses in. So they must have been at least 500 pounds.
You saw your house ringed by the roof tiles.
Yes, the house was absolutely ringed by the tiles. What struck me as so curious was that the letter box was underneath the tiles on the outside of the house but the lock was inside the house where I suppose it had been blown in. Luckily the house was boarded and felted so that it was still waterproof although practically every window in the house was broken.
I came back three weeks later and found that several of the windows had been replaced. Being the first incident in this area the builders came straight back into the house to rebuild it as necessary. They re-glazed the whole house but I came back and found several of the windows at the back of the house broken with flint stones on the floor inside the bedroom upstairs. The bombs had dropped about 100 yards across the place. Later. But that was the extent of the damage. There was no damage to the house afterwards.
[The bombs dropped were 200 pounders and the name of the postman was Hatchwell.]
[Mrs Browning said that after the first incident, Dr Topping, a friend who lived nearby, rushed round to see how they were. Dr Topping was the creator of Brunel University subsequently He was a Quaker and introduced her to Mrs Melcombe in Woodvill Lane who took the family in.]
Maurice Henry BROWNING, born 25 October 1906 in Camberwell, London. Married Lily F MONEY in the June quarter of 1931 in Camberwell. Died in the June quarter of 1993 in Surrey Mid Eastern.
Lily Fawnia C MONEY born 18 February 1903. Died in the June quarter of 1995 in Surrey Mid Eastern.