School bombing article brought tears to my eyes

11:31am Tuesday 6th May 2008

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I LIVED for 50 years in Hither Green before moving to Deeping Gate near Peterborough, and at the time of the bombing of the Sandhurst Road school was evacuated to Sayers Croft School at Ewhurst, Surrey.

The reason for writing is the story Don't Forget School Blast Victims (News Shopper, February 20) was sent to me by my sister-in-law, who still lives in the house in Brightside Road my brother and I were born in.

She sends me articles from your papers which she thinks might interest me.

This one certainly did, as when my mother came to visit me after the bombing she told me my playmate Doreen had been killed.

She too had seen the plane from her bedroom window skirting the clock tower of Hither Green Hospital.

Doreen - I think her surname was Thorn - lived in Ferndale Road, was a special mate in a crowd of boys and girls who congregated in and around the slope of the station.

Reading the story brought tears of remembrance to my eyes.

I visited the National Arboretum determined to find the tree Mary Burch had planted in the hope the names of the children would be listed, in order to remember her surname.

When I found the tree, I cried again on seeing it.

If Mary Burch ever gets to read this, then I thank you for bringing it all back to me.

Doreen and I would have been 12 at the time.

JEFFREY STOCKING

Deeping Gate

Peterborough