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Right-o, Thank you Cooper1.

I'm about 4 hours away (well 3 on a night run, and 7 when the M25 is chock-a-block  )... Enjoy your walk in the September sunshine.

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Hello @Copper1, Emma et al,


Thank you for your last 3 posts, sorry it has taken me awhile to write, life has been rather frustrating recently and plagued with pitfalls!


I am sure Emma will reply when she can. For myself I am a direct descendant of Hagar and Harry Edgeley, and since I started researching their deaths through various means, including interviewing the daughter of the Hagar's Sister I have learned much of the story. Your reply only adds more information for which I thank you. I live in DOrset and had planned on visiting their graves this summer but Covid put a stop to that! Next year I shall look again!

Here's what I know:


Harry and Hagar had her sister Gladys, and her young daughter, Constance, living with them in Ashville Road. Gladys worked as a shorthand typist in London. Constance was studying as a shorthand typist herself at the Pitman Training College.


As the earlier Blitz of London was over - the last bombs having fallen on the night of 11th May 1940, although raids did take place throughout 1942, it was nothing like the constant bombardment of '41 - children had started to return to their homes from enforced evacuation and life was getting back to some semblance of wartime 'normality' (I wonder if they called it the new normal?). However, nearly 3 years had passed when suddenly during January 1944 the Bombs started to fall again. This was what the German High Command called "Operation Steinbock" - some newspaper wag called it the 'little blitz', and this stuck.


The little blitz, or 'baby blitz as it was also known, was a strategic bombing campaign by the German Air Force which targeted southern England and lasted from January to May 1944. As a side note: around 500 German aircraft took part this campaign. There were 14 raids on London and more on Bristol, Hull and Cardiff. Altogether over 1,500 people were killed and around 3,000 seriously injured!


Constance, who had just celebrated her 16th birthday recalled that on the night of 29th January 1944, which was a Saturday evening, she was in the kitchen of Ashville Road helping her mother cook the cats food when they heard the Air Raid Siren's start to wail. They had been out most of the afternoon having taken Hagar to see a Doctor as they were worried about her health, they were tired and upset by the Doctors report; the last thing they needed was an air raid! Harry, who was in the back room with Hagar, shouted that they were staying put as they were listening to a radio program on the BCC! Stuff Mr. Hilter! Stuff the Luftwaffe!


Harry had previously refused to dig up his garden for an Anderson Shelter saying that as they had a good strong kitchen table which they could to take cover under, if need be. Then they heard the boom of explosions as the bombs fell. They all realised that the booms were quite close - and getting closer still, so Gladys told Constance to get under the table - which she did, her mum was taking the hot saucepan of cat food off the cooker when all hell let loose - BOOM!


Silence...


When she came too, Constance was stunned, covered in dust and debris, her ears rang with high pitch whistling - yet were dulled and deafened by the volume of the explosion - which had rocked her to the core. She was laying on her back in the demolished kitchen... The kitchen table had been blown over and as she began to focus her eyes through the dust which filled the air, her hearing returned as she could her her mother calling for help. Her mum was laying in/on a pile of rubble and masonry, and Harry and Florence were buried under the a tall and heavy dresser which had been knocked over by the blast - they were covered by the remains of their smashed dinner service.


Two soldiers rescued Constance and her mum, who was brought out on a stretcher and taken off to hospital where she spent the next 3 months in recovery. Harry and Florence were killed outright by the blast.


The bomb had actually not hit the house directly but fell a short distance away damaging several house and killing a number of people at that end of Ashville Road.

This is a tragic story and only goes to show the futility of war and its long term effects.

AS I said I hope that visit their graves next year if I can find them with the information you have supplied me with!

Thank you.

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Might be a parish name - short for Christ Church?...

Thanks for the reply but I think that ShaunJ below has the answer I was looking for! Thank you.

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Hi All,

I have come across a couple of ancestors who in the 1800's went abroad to Chr. Calcutta. I should imagine that Chr. is an abbreviation for Christian, but a search of the internet only brings up people born in Chr. Calcutta.

Can anyone explain why it was referred to as Chr. Calcutta and not just Calcutta?

Thank you.

Fanflame.

One last post before I sign off.

Here is an extract from an interesting article that mention's the Little Blitz of early 1944 and has a quote from Clementine Churchill (Baroness Soames) who was working as a member of the ATS. The link to its original website page it at the bottom. This is a shortened version:


"21 January 1944 - 19 April 1944: The 'Little Blitz'


From January to April 1944, substantial German air raids resumed on London in the so-called ‘Little Blitz’ (or ‘Baby Blitz’). Greater London and south east England were singled out for attack again in retaliation for British saturation bombing of major German cities, particularly Berlin. In a last major conventional night bombing effort - Operation Steinbock - the Luftwaffe devoted 524 aircraft for new night raids on London, including Junkers JU88S, Junkers JU188, Dornier Do217, Messerschmitt ME410 and Heinkel HE177 bombers. Around 460 aircraft from this force were airworthy.

During four months of raids – fourteen on London (seven on Westminster) and others on Bristol, Hull and Cardiff - approximately 1,500 people were killed with almost 3,000 seriously injured. In London, people flocked again to the Underground stations, as they had done in 1940-1941 (deep public shelters were still not available).

On the night of 21-22 January 1944 the 'Little Blitz' began. 400 aircraft, flying in two waves, dropped 268 tons of high explosive bombs and thousands of incendiaries on south east England and London. ...

On 28 January, 285 bombers attacked the Surrey Commercial Docks, in the process causing major fires.

Additional air raids on London took place on 29 January and on 19, 20, 23, 24 and 29 February 1944. ...

The final raid of the ‘Little Blitz’ took place on the night of 18-19 April 1944. ...

Winston Churchill’s youngest daughter, Baroness Soames, experienced the ‘Little Blitz’ at first hand in London whilst a member of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS):

“Early in 1944, the enemy once more turned his attention upon the cities of this country, London being the chief target. Londoners accepted this resumption of the air raids stolidly, but people were just that much wearier; three years of the sheer slog of wartime life since the first Blitz had inevitably taken their toll. During the ‘Little Blitz’, the noise was truly appalling, most of it being caused by our own, much more formidable defences, and even a quiet night brought little rest to many thousands of men and women, who, after their day’s work, went home to do their stint as Air Raid Wardens and Firewatchers. Westminster was no more immune than other parts of London: on the night of 20 February 1944, Downing Street and Whitehall once again suffered bomb damage”
(Mary Soames: ‘Clementine Churchill’, 1979)."

For further reading see : http://www.westendatwar.org.uk/page_id__152_path__0p2p.aspx