WW2 75.2: Yes, Budleigh was bombed

Continued from 
https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2020/07/ww2-75-experience-of-world-war-two.html

Continuing my reminders of the impact of wartime 75 years ago in Budleigh Salterton I noted some sad events.

Fairlynch Museum records various instances of damage caused by isolated air raids. 

The most tragic case was on 5 July 1941, when a bomb fell on 31 Armytage Road, pictured above, killing 35-year-old Florence Davie and two children — Joyce Davie aged eight, and Joyce Lowe, aged eleven. A few doors away, at number 35, another fatality was 70-year-old Mary Ann Sanders. Another bomb hit 10 Clinton Terrace, killing Doris Hadden, aged 38. 

Pages from the wartime register recording Budleigh casualties resulting from enemy action

The names of those injured on that date were recorded in a manuscript register of the time. A total of 15 casualties were similarly recorded during further incidents on 17 April 1942. The register, kept probably by a police sergeant, was bought at  Totnes market stall in May 2016 and has been deposited at the Devon Heritage Centre.

Lynda Evans points out damage from enemy action at Markers café (now L’Image) on Budleigh High Street.    Image credit:  Fairlynch Museum WW2 archives

A well known incident which occurred towards the end of the war is recorded as follows in a history of Budleigh Salterton Croquet Club:  ‘In 1945 three enemy planes flew up and down the High Street dropping 5 bombs. Not much damage was done as the shops were closed for lunch but Marker's cafe, the Railway goods yard and Palmer's furniture store received direct hits. The club house was also damaged.” http://www.budleighcroquet.org/about-us/history/

A painting of the scene as imagined by the artist was specially commissioned and exhibited as part of the Royal British Legion’s Poppy Day Appeal in Budleigh.  

The same incident was graphically recounted by a local resident in a Radio 4 programme entitled ‘Budleigh at War’, broadcast in 1986. 'It was one of the hit and run raids and we were sitting having our lunch and this fighter came ZOOOOM across the town. And bombs. It was all over in a few seconds I suppose. We sort of gasped and said “Well that's that” and then it just occurred to me that the baby was in its pram out of doors, and as were saying “That's that” we heard this beast coming back again. I think my chief feeling was how ridiculous it was of me spreading myself all over the baby's pram, being thoroughly melodramatic, and the bomb dropped on the bottom of West Hill. It was the old Assembly Room, but Palmer's was using it as a store and all the contents went up in the air and sheets and sheets of musical scores coming down all around. But my chief recollection was that it was so melodramatic. It just didn't seem real.'  A local researcher who quoted the broadcast thinks that the speaker was probably Priscilla Hull.

Then and now: Scaffolding in St Peter’s Church, Budleigh, following bomb damage, and the church as it is today

A bomb also caused havoc at St Peter’s Church. The nave was filled with debris, making a heap about 15 feet high in the centre.  Fortunately the chancel escaped much damage except for the windows.

In 2018, local historian Nick Loman launched a new ‘Budleigh at War’ project with his 45-minute film evoking life in the town in the 1939-45 period. The film was inspired by the tape-recording of a first-hand account of wartime life in the town, given by Richard Dellenty who had been evacuated to the supposed safe haven of Budleigh in 1941 from bomb-hit Bristol.  You can read about it at https://www.exmouthjournal.co.uk/news/watch-ww2-film-about-budleigh-on-ve-day-1-6642725

Vivid wartime memories still live on in Budleigh, passed on through the generations.  Local resident Diane Morris was told of relatives who perished by her mother Elsie Corfield.

Two members of her family were killed by the bomb that was dropped on Armytage Road, following the death of her uncle Victor Davie who died in a raid on Exmouth a few months previously on March 1 1941.

‘It must have been a very sad and difficult time then,’ she reflected. ‘It puts life today into perspective.’

The next piece in my WW2 75 series is at 
https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2020/07/ww2-75-austrian-maids.html

You can access other posts on this blog by going to the Blog Archive (under the ‘About Me’ section), and clicking on the appropriate heading.