The afternoon of Feb 4th 1943. A surprise raid by the Luftwaffe

"Hit-and-Run on Ryde"

N: in the series "Echoes of the Home Front by John Howard Worsley

Thursday February 4th 1943 was bright and quite mild for that time of the year. Mrs. B. Browne was the manageress of
the Victory Cleaners in the High Street at Ryde on the Isle of Wight and spent the morning cleaning the shop front and
windows. She really need not have bothered!

Other local people were making the most of the weather and engaging themselves in various peaceful activities.
The Wright family. who had been bombed out from their home in East Cowes, had found what they thought
would be a safer haven at 55 Argyll Street (now re-numbered: 65). Cecil Wright, who was a
16 year old apprentice at Saunders Roe, E Cowes, had 'taken time off' work to attend one of
the Thursday afternoon dances at the Commodore Cinema, ... A good place to meet the girls!

Around 3pm, Maureen, his 14 year old sister, had teamed up with
her chum Phyl Blake to go into town for some buns for tea, leaving her darling little brother John with
her mum Mabel Wright. Sister Barb, twelve, was at Upper Grade School and father, Stan Wright, was
busy at work in Saunders Roe at East Cowes.

At Osborne Road, Dorothy Blake was unscrewing the dolly curlers from her hair which had
transformed it into beautiful tight curls. She was about to visit her parents a short distance away in
the Swanmore district of the town where, just across the road, Mr. A. J. Norman, a retired teacher was
digging in his back garden. A few hundred yards away, Cilla and Jack Harvey were
taking lessons with their infant class-mates in St Michael's Church Hall, which was
a stand-by classroom since the proper school at Swanmore, had been
destroyed by a landmine a year before.

All in all, the day had started pretty well .........

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