Bedford Park 150 – Terry Jardine remembers his wartime childhood

Image: Workmen from a typical “Blitz Repair Squad” carry out temporary repairs following the explosion of a V1 Flying Bomb. Photograph courtesy of the Imperial War Museum 

Memories of growing up in Bedford Park

Bedford Park is celebrating 150 years this year. The first ‘garden suburb’ was advertised as ‘the healthiest place in the world’, at the end of the new railway line so residents could live in clean air, but near enough to town that they could make their way into London to pursue their business interests.

The estate’s developer Jonathan Carr purchased the first 24 acres of land in 1875, and his vision was realised over the next few years, as the houses, stores, church, a club with a stage, and the Tabard Inn were built.

To mark the 150th anniversary we are publishing a series of personal accounts from some of those who have lived in Bedford Park, about what it was like growing up there, in association with the Bedford Park Society and Torin Douglas, from St Michael & All Angels Church.

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Image: Remembering the dead from Chiswick in two World Wars; Photograph Jim Cox

Chiswick’s war

During the Second World War, Chiswick was bombed repeatedly with incendiary and high explosive bombs; falling anti-aircraft shells and shrapnel also caused damage. Some of the most dramatic incidents within Bedford Park included the destruction of 9 Blenheim Road by a high-explosive bomb on 18 September 1940 and damage to number 11.

A few days later, 13 Queen Anne’s Grove was also destroyed. On 23 August 1944 at 8.32am a V1 landed on Chiswick Polytechnic School in Bath Road (now the site of the Arts Educational building).

Part of the building was destroyed along with severe damage to houses in Flanders Road (one person was killed, six hospitalised and 22 suffered minor injuries) and to St Michael & All Angels where windows were blown out, the roof was damaged and the stained glass at the east end destroyed.

The first V-2 rocket to hit London fell on Staveley Road, Chiswick, at 6.44pm on 8 September 1944, killing three people and injuring 22 others; 11 houses were demolished and another 27 were seriously damaged in the immediate area.

READ ALSO: 80th anniversary of first V-2 rocket to hit London commemorated

READ ALSO: Remembering the dead of two World Wars in Chiswick in 2024

Images: (L) Terry with his father showing the ‘temporary’ standard brick and concrete air raid shelter; (R) Flanders Mansions in the background where heavy black-out blinds can be seen at some of the windows. White bands round the trees helped guide motorists with no street lighting

What was it like growing up in Bedford Park during the Second World War?

First published in the Bedford Park Journal

Terry Jardine has lived in Bedford Park since his birth in 1938 and still has vivid memories of his childhood during WWII. Terry experienced many of the most dramatic bombing incidents in the area while his family were living in Lonsdale Road.

The local Air Raid Warning/All Clear siren was located at the old Chiswick Police Station and there was a brick air-raid shelter out in our street, but I only remember going into it once and didn’t like it very much. We always slept in the cellar, not in the bedrooms upstairs, and took refuge there during air raids.

My father was familiar with pit props and ways of supporting things and he built a false roof over part of our cellar so that should the house collapse from a bomb we would have been protected by this framework. My little divan down there was near the front doorstep where glass was missing in the panel underneath, so I used to lie in bed listening to German bombers flying overhead, with lots of explosions and banging outside, which was frightening.

I was young enough not to completely understand what was going on but when you went outside in the morning you would see odd bomb sites where houses had disappeared.

There was quite a bit of bombing in this area including a flying bomb in Thornton Avenue. Fortunately, Lonsdale Road never received a direct hit, but it did sometimes suffer from the results of bomb blast. The greatest damage to our own house was caused by the VI Flying Bomb, which demolished the old Chiswick Polytechnic.

Image: A bin in the street for recycling waste food to be used to feed pigs and to help the war effort

I remember very clearly, it was about 8 o’clock in the morning, I heard the bomb “cutting out” over the house, followed seconds later by the explosion. The house was generally intact — mainly broken windows and tiles and things, but all the upstairs ceilings came down. The blast even caused the lino under heavy furniture to become displaced, and we never did find the lock off the front door!

The road outside afterwards was covered in broken tiles and glass. One person was killed and others injured in Flanders Road and the old Chiswick Poly was completely gone. My father went to see the damage and found a desk intact. A policeman said he could take it, and I have always been meaning to go back to the Arts Educational School and see if they would like it back!

When a bomb landed in Chiswick High Road, outside the Catholic church in Dukes Avenue, it made a whacking great hole in the road and destroyed the gas main. We had no gas for several days and my mother did all the cooking over a Valour paraffin stove.

During rationing, some relatives in Australia sent us food parcels, things like tinned chicken and Spam. My uncles in Scotland used to shoot pheasants and rabbits, which would arrive in the post —unwrapped — with just an address label round them. They were hung on the back of a door and then the cat would swing on them!

When I was six, the first V2 rocket landed in Staveley Road, and I heard that go off while I was in the garden. It sounded completely different to anything else. It made a double bang as it went through the sound barrier as it came down and then it made another. There was a lot of bomb damage. Squads of workmen would make temporary repairs — bituminous felt would be nailed over broken windows with large-headed galvanised nails to make them weatherproof.

After the war, we were entitled to the scheduled war damage repairs, but these were not up to the standard of the original, for example, the replacement of plaster ceiling mouldings. It’s marvellous what the Society has done over the years and how people have spent money restoring the houses, bringing them back to what they should be.

With thanks to Terry Jardine for providing his memories and to the Bedford Park Society and Marilyn Baxter, whose interview with Terry – part of the Society’s Oral History project – gave additional information.

Read more stories on The Chiswick Calendar