Spooky War Stories - My Mothers Brush With Fate

My mother, Sergeant Georgina Stone, was stationed at North Weald Aerodrome in World War II. Among the terrible losses, humor, and laughter, some pretty strange occurrences happened.

My mother was a Sergeant at the RAF base, North Weald which is in Essex England.

She was there for most of the war, but near the end, she was transferred to Biggin Hill, then Bisham Abbey near Marlow Buckinghamshire.

When she was stationed at North Weald she would always get a lift from the American lorry drivers who would supply the base with food and essentials and then drive through to her town.

She met a lovely guy who always picked her up and dropped her off. Usually with a huge bag of chocolate, nylons and much to her family's delight, tins of pears and other fruit that they couldn't get in the war because of rations.

She took this trip at least 20 times until one day when she was stopped by her superior.

It had never happened before. But for some reason, the woman wanted to speak to her about her skirt.

'Sergeant Stone, why are you not wearing regulation clothing?'

My mum turned to her and replied.....

'I am on leave, so I didn't feel it was appropriate to wear it while travelling.'

'Well go and change it!'

So she did.

And because of this, she missed her lift.

But on the way home, she saw something that left her cold. And very sad.

The lorry was up a tree!

It had been blown up at the time she would have been travelling with it. The lorry and the lovely American driver were gone.

When she went back to camp and spoke to her superior, the woman said,

'You know? I have no idea why I pulled you up on that. Something made me do it.'

My Grandmother Rose Stone was washing up at her kitchen sink. She called it a Scullery as it was a small kitchen at the back of her old three-storey house.

It was just another day in the dark times of the second world war. She knew her son Ron was training to be an RAF bomber command pilot. But she knew he had been there for months and felt he was relatively safe.

Then it happened.

A bright light shone in her eyes through the window and she heard her son yell 'mum' at the top of his voice.

She collapsed on the floor and the rest of the family went running to her aid. To start with they couldn't get any sense out of her until she screamed,

'Its Ron, he's dead, I heard him!'

The family were so shocked but put it down to panic or imagination. Until the next day when there came the knock on the door.

He had died exactly at the time Granny Rose heard him. He drowned after his plane had come down in the River Dee in Scotland. He got out but dived back in to save his friend. They both drowned.

Another spooky occurrence involving my mother was the night when she was supposed to be in the Conning, or control, Tower at North Weald. It was her turn to man the phones and deal with the planes flying back in from their raids.

This particular night she was asked by another one of the WAAF's would she please swop with her as she had a date the following week? So my mum changed duty with her and went home on leave instead.

After a lovely weekend with her family, my mother went back to base. The sight that greeted her was horrific.

The airbase had been bombed and the Conning Tower was blown to smithereens!

Her friend and the other crew were all dead.

My mother had beaten Fate twice.

But luckily for me, she was saved 3 times!

The third was when she placed me in a cot nearly 20 years later. She was living at home with all the family which included Grandparents too.

The house was pretty old but there was nothing to indicate any problems until on this particular day.

She said a few years later that she had got a 'feeling' which made her do what she did.

She said:

'I was just sitting there, the cot was over by the corner and suddenly I had this strangest feeling. And it was urgent! I rushed across, scooped you (me) up out of the cot and ran out of the room. Suddenly there was an almighty bang and a thunderous noise, and looking back I was shocked to see the ceiling had fallen in. And most of the debris had fallen straight into your cot!'

Without that feeling, neither I nor my mother would be here today!

One word, Phew!