WWII: Bombing raid left Bernard bruised – thanks to his mum

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Home Guard Captain Ernest Golding was determined that no Hitler bomber would drive him under cover – which had unfortunate consequences for his young son Bernard, as correspondent John Garratt amusingly recounts.

Bernard Golding equipped for war in 1940

Bernard’s parents, Edna and Ernest Golding

Captain Ernest Golding, second-in-command of the 13th Battalion Home Guard, in 1942

Bernard today, telling the tale of his wartime ‘near miss’ to his grandson, Ethan

ONE of the great escapes of the Second World War was the survival of the borough of Derby. Whatever the reason for its deliverance – decoy or divine intervention – the town was spared the fate of other blitzed cities.

As a great industrial heartland, a railway junction, a centre of light and heavy engineering and the home of Rolls-Royce – the greatest prize of all for any bomber fleet – the town should have been a prime target.

Everyone knew it, from the street sweeper to the mayor and corporation. In the month before war was declared, Central School was evacuated from Abbey Street, near the town centre, to Darley Park on the outskirts.

Hitler finally launched his blitz in October, 1940, and crouched under the stairs or in Anderson shelters, Derby waited for the worst.

London, Plymouth and Coventry were plastered. Night after night, the sirens wailed and the bombers droned overhead on their mission of destruction.

We expected the town to be razed, but amazingly we escaped almost unscathed. Those under the flight path to Coventry had the more hair-raising experiences. Some houses in the Normanton area were destroyed and families killed.

The remainder stoically sat it out – but there was always the danger of “friendly fire” as Old Centaur Bernard Golding discovered to his cost.

As an eight-year-old, Bernard lived in Offerton Avenue, Normanton, close to Normanton Rec.

His father was Captain Ernest Golding, second-in- command of the 13th Battalion (Sherwood Foresters) Home Guard.

Captain Golding had served as an NCO with the Royal Irish Regiment in the First World War. He survived four years in the trenches and came unscathed through the horrors of Passchendale, only to be taken prisoner in April 1918.

Perhaps not surprisingly, he had plenty of Churchill’s bulldog spirit and an enduring belief in his own indestructibility. And, anyway, “no blinkin’ Jerry” was going to drive him under cover.

It was his habit, when the sirens sounded, to patrol the garden, assess the strength and direction of the incoming enemy bomber fleet, check the night sky for searchlights and gunfire and then retire to bed.

He was cheerfully optimistic that, wherever the bombs fell, they would not fall on him.

Inside the house on this particular night, matters were less sanguine. It was one of the heaviest raids of the war and the sound of gunfire and the crump of bombs was shattering. Bernard’s mother, Edna, uttered a silent prayer as the chimney pots rattled, the house shook and the kitchen clock leapt off the mantelpiece.

Then she did what any right-thinking mother would do when faced by the might of the Luftwaffe, she seized Bernard by the scruff of the neck and hurled him under the kitchen table.

It was one of the fastest journeys of his young life, possibly exceeded only by his speed on the famous Darley Park sledge run.

Bernard catapulted across the floor and under the table, torpedoed the kitchen wall with his head and passed out. When he came to, the all-clear was sounding and everything was still standing – except Bernard and the kitchen clock.

He was one of the first victims of “collateral damage” in Derby.

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