Memories of the R101, wartime and joining the Bedfordshire Times aged 15 - Bedford Today
Former Bedfordshire Times reporter Derrick Holden shares his memories of his early career and wartime in the town. My earliest memory is being held in my mother’s arms in the back garden of our home in Queen’s Park, Bedford and looking at a strange object in the sky - it was an airship, the illfated R101. I did not realise then that if it had not been for that... I must have been about 19 months old when I first saw the craft on one of its trial flights in preparation for its trailblazing flight to India and other parts of the British Empire. There were sporadic air raids on the town, causing loss of life and damage to property. One of its planes, returning home from the devastating attack on Coventry, dropped two land mines on the town. Fortunately one fell on a rubbish dump in Queen’s Park (Cox’s Pit), and the other on allotments at Kempston. In the former, roofs were damaged and windows shattered. Nearby Honey Hill Road took the brunt of the raid but our house, a few hundred yards away in Ford End Road, only had a window blown out. Source: www.bedfordtoday.co.uk
