Shot at by the Luftwaffe, Keats Lane, Earl Shilton.

     I thought I might tell you a story which I still find amusing; though at the time it occurred (during the war) it was obviously not so. At the time, I was at Earl Shilton R.C. School, in Mill Lane, when this particular morning a lost German plane flew low over Keats Lane and a boy I remember as Gary Cassell was on his way to the same school as this plane flew over, low and sprayed machine gun bullets along Keats Lane. He ran into an entry and dropped his scarf. When he eventually recovered it, he noticed it contained a bullet hole.

    He told the story to Michael Mortimore, the son of the village bobby who also attended the school. On hearing this, Mike Mortimore said 'It was a good job he had not got it wrapped round his neck, at the time.'

    So much for impromptu humour at this stage of our lives.

    I was woken up early on morning and was later told there had been an explosion, close by in Earl Shilton. Later that morning, it was discovered that a bomb had fallen in the Leacroft’s, and landing on soft ground restricted it’s damage to killing a pig and a chicken, belonging to the Fullylore family. It was later reported in newspapers, but owing to the war situation, it was not given out as being Earl Shilton, only ‘a Midland’s village’


ByT. Langham