Before enlisting in the RAF, Albert had married Nuneaton born Violet (Binty) Elise Bint (1917) at Islington, London in early 1940 and settled at Humberstone Drive, Leicester. During October of that same year he began his pilot's training.

It must have been a very worrying time for Albert. Within a month of beginning  pilot's training, his Leicestershire home with Violet and baby Geoff was in danger. Here is an account of the bombing and some local residents' recollections:

Violet and Geoff in 1940

The area was badly bombed during the Second World War with bombs falling across the area between the Old Horse and the city center on the night of the 19th November 1940. Amongst the High Explosive Bombs and Incendiaries dropped on the area during that night, it was recorded that one of the Luftwaffe's largest of bombs was dropped on Grove Road (the 1000 kg Parachute Mine), causing extensive damage to adjacent streets.

12 soldiers of the Royal Army Pay Corps were amongst some of the fatal casualties of that night. These soldiers were billeted in the Highfields area of Leicester and their deaths bring the total of fatalities on the night 120. 

This was the city's largest of at least 8 recorded enemy raids between September 1940 - July 1942, where 122 people died in total and 284 recorded as seriously injured. It is still possible to trace the paths of the bombs by looking at the areas of post-1950s building that have gone on in the area.

The worst night of bombing took place on November 19 1940 when several buildings at the corner of Highfield Street and Tichborne Street were destroyed and 41 people killed. The sites are now occupied by a community hall and a garage. This night is often referred to as Leicester's Blitz. On the same night a number of bombs fell on Sparkenhoe Street destroying homes, the local Post Office and the Methodist Church on the corner of Saxby Street and killing two people. Amongst those killed on that night were members of the Royal Army Pay Corps who were billeted in the area. 

Fragments of the bomb which destroyed the Methodist Church also damaged St Peter's Church, passing through the West window, bouncing several times before becoming embedded in the high altar

Wartime memories of the Leicester Blitz - 19/20 November 1940.

'I was buried alive in the blitz'  By Adam Wakelin        This article first appeared in the Leicestershire Chronicle in 2006

If William “Jock” Joiner tells me once, he tells me a dozen times. “Don’t make me out to be some hero, son,” he urges, stopping his story to extract yet another promise that his part will not be over-played.  “I’m not a publicity seeker,” he says. “Don’t overdo it. I just want to tell you what I saw and help you to get it right.”

He has no need to worry. The bare facts of what happened on November 19, 1940, are powerful enough without any embellishment.

It was the night that would become known as Leicester’s Blitz. By the time the air-raid sirens stopped, 108 men, women and children lay dead and dying and a swathe of the city had been pulverised to ash and rubble.

Jock, one of the last surviving witnesses to the horror, was buried alive by a bomb blast that killed three of his friends.

“The Germans caught us with our trousers down,” says Jock, then a 24-year-old detective constable with Leicester City police. “We took a hell of a beating.

“A lot of people got killed that night. I still don’t know how I got away from it.”

The onslaught began when Luftwaffe pathfinders reached the city shortly after 7.30pm. Flying low, they dropped oil bombs and hundreds of small incendiaries to light up the city for the heavy-duty explosives soon to come.

Jock and his pal Detective Constable Brian Hawkes were sent up on to the flat roof of Charles Street police station on fire watch as the hailstorm of incendiaries came tumbling out of the darkness.

Everything the canisters touched exploded into flame. “We were surrounded by the buggers,” recalls the 92-year-old, who now lives in Anstey. “My shoes were burning from kicking them off the roof into the street.

“Fires were raging everywhere. Lulham’s factory, in Northampton Street, went up in flames and Freeman Hardy and Willis’s big warehouse, on the corner of Rutland Street, took a direct hit.

“We had nothing to fire back. The only gun was an ack-ack on Victoria Park. We were on that bloody roof two-and-a-half hours.”

No sooner had the pair flopped into the canteen for a break than they were being sent back out.

“Inspector Poole came in and said, ‘You, you, you and you’, pointing to me, Brian Hawkes, Len Norman and George Trump, ‘I want you to go up to Highfields. It’s taking a right hammering,’” says Jock.

Of the four, only he would come out alive.

Their job, he explains, was to set up an incident post for the ARP wardens and firefighters to report to. They had not long set up their blue police lantern when it was smashed to smithereens by a shell.

He and George were sent back to the station for another.

Highfields was being beaten senseless. Buildings blazed, ceilings lay on floors and window frames flapped in sagging walls.

Huge holes had been gouged out of roads and the night air was filled with thousands of burning embers.

Wherever they settled, something else started to burn.

“It was pretty hairy,” remembers Jock. “We couldn’t get down Sparkenhoe Street. A gas main had been hit. It was gushing fire.

“You should have seen it,” he says. “The whole place was lit up like Piccadilly Circus. You could almost wave at the bomber pilots.”

They eventually set up a second incident post near the first.

“We helped to fetch the dead and injured out of houses in Saxby Street.

“You could hear the whistles of the bombs coming down,” remembers Jock.

“I counted the whistles and I counted the bangs. If you had six whistles and five bangs, it meant you had an unexploded bomb to take into account.”

A shard of molten shrapnel smashed into one man’s gas mask case. He instinctively put his hand up to his chest and it took his finger off.

“We took such a hammering. There was a bus in Sparkenhoe Street full of doctors and medical supplies. That bugger went up in front of us.

“It was a long time ago,” he says quietly. “It was 66 years ago this month. It seems like bloody yesterday.”

No one knows quite why Leicester came under such a brutal, sustained attack.

Jock believes it might have been a classic case of mistaken identity.

“I think the Germans thought we were Coventry,” he says. “That’s what I’ve heard over the years. I’m not saying that’s right, but it makes sense.”

The first high explosive bomb was dropped on the city just after 8pm. Reports record it hitting a pair of semi-detached houses in Holmfield Avenue.

Shortly afterwards, a large bomb crashed through the town hall roof. It failed to go off but smashed through several floors before ending up in the basement.

The raid was at its most intense between 9.30pm and 10.45pm and Highfields was the worst hit.

High-calibre bombs landing on the corner of Highfield Street and Tichbourne Street killed 41 and injured many more.

Several houses were flattened in Frank Street, according to reports, and a crater 40 feet across and 20 feet deep was made in Grove Road, near Vulcan Road.

A parachute mine just missed a railway line near the corner of Tollemache Avenue and Sudeley Avenue.

More than 400 houses in this area suffered blast damage, but every Anderson shelter remained intact.

Less fortunate were the poor souls in a shelter under Grieves’s factory, in Southampton Street. Five were killed and 14 injured when a shell smashed into the building.

The moment Jock and his mates were hit survives as a few frozen frames in his memory.

“All I remember is a searing orange flame,” he says. “I can remember gliding through air, mouth wide open. It all seemed to happen in slow motion.

“Oblivion,” he says quietly to himself.

“Apparently, I was hidden under a lot of debris and rubble. They tell me they had to clear a lot of stuff away to get me out.”

They must have told him his mates didn’t make it, but he can’t remember it, or much about his time in hospital.

A slug of shrapnel blew a hole in Jock’s steel helmet. The right side of his head was numb for months and it was two years before he could taste food.

“I don’t want you to make too much of my injuries,” he says.

“I had a few fractures and silly things like that. I was all right. I was lucky. I survived. It didn’t seem that long before I was back on duty again.

“I understand Len and George were killed outright. Brian died on the way to hospital.”

Jock has typed their service records on to three small squares of paper. He’s done it, he says, to make sure he never forgets them. Not that he ever will.

It is a heartbreakingly brief summary of three lives halted in their prime.

“George Edwin Trump. (PC 118). Joined Leicester City Police in September 1936. Killed by enemy action.

“Detective Sergeant 29. Leonard Thomas Norman. Joined Leicester City Police in 1928 as (PC 109). Killed by enemy action.

“Detective Constable Brian Mansell Hawkes. Joined Leicester City Police (PC 140) October 1933. Normal beat patrol duties. Driver attached to the Traffic Department. Transferred to CID. Killed by enemy action.”

Jock has also made a copy of his own service record.

“William (Jock) Joiner. Detective Constable 139. Joined Leicester City Police June 12, 1935. Blown up, buried and injured, but survived. Served for 30 years, retiring on a police pension at the rank of Inspector on June 12, 1965.”

How his entry in the police records does not come to an abrupt end on November 19, 1940, he’ll never know.

“I’m still here. I got knocked about but I’m still here,” he says. “How do you accept something like that? I don’t know.

“There must be someone up there waiting for me,” he says through a thin smile. “I don’t feel guilty, but there is a lot of remorse that I was the only survivor.

“I’ve got three daughters and two sons and 14 lovely grandchildren. I’ve had a good, long life. None of those lads had that chance.

“They were three lovely fellas. Brian was a lovely fella and Len was a lovely fella as well.

“They were good mates of mine. We’d been on jobs together, we’d locked people up together and we’d enjoyed a few bloody good drinks together as well.”

Jock met Len’s son, Peter, at a dedication ceremony for police officers killed in the line of duty a few years ago.

“We’ve been in close contact ever since,” he says.

“I’m sure I’ll speak to him on the 19th, I usually do.

“What happened will be on my mind that day. Most of the time I try not to think about it, but you do. You can try to write it off but it never fades, not really.

“Don’t play up my injuries,” he says once more.

“Just say I was in hospital and I was back on duty soon after. I’m still here. I’m grateful for that and I’m grateful that I’ve had 66 years of life that I shouldn’t have had.”

Memoir originally published in "Leicester Our War"

I lived in St. George Street, Leicester with my parents and young brother in a small terraced house. There was a cellar and an attic and we shared an entry with our next door neighbour. There was a small back yard with a lavatory at the end.

I remember the night of 19 November 1940 very well, although it is now over 60 years since the awful bombing of that night.

My father, who worked at Gents, St. Saviours Road, arrived home from work about seven o'clock that evening. He came in and said "Be quick, let's get round to the shelter as incendiary bombs are dropping." At that moment the air raid siren had not sounded. The shelter was at St. George's School, Colton Street which had been reinforced; this was where our family and many more people went to shelter during the air raids.

As we left our home to go to the shelter I remember very clearly seeing the curtains of Rowleys, Queen Street (part of the building was in St. George Street) were on fire; these were blowing through a broken window caused by an incendiary bomb.

During the night we could hear bombs being dropped, ARP wardens and other people would call into the school from time to time to report on what was happening round about. We also knew that fire engines were at work very near to us.

It was my mother's birthday on 20 November, so we were able to wish her 'Many Happy Returns' soon after midnight. This is why I shall never forget the date of the worst bombing in Leicester.

After the all-clear had sounded (I think if must have been between two and three o'clock) we made our way home, but it wasn't until just before nine o'clock that morning as I made my way to work at Wolsey Ltd, King Street. I saw the building of Lulhams (Shoe Manufacturers) which was situated at the corner of Northampton Square and Charles Street, still smoldering.

Later on that day we learnt that one bomb had dropped at the bottom of Swain Street bridge. Another one at the top end of Peel Street and a third one on Grieves factory (Knitting Machine Needle Manufacturers) in Queen Street, had been badly hit and there were some casualties.

Also very near to us were the factories of Freeman, Hardy & Willis in Wimbledon Street which was almost totally destroyed and Faire Bros.

Later, when we realised that we had been in the middle of such destruction we felt we were lucky to be alive.
Mrs O.E. Farrands (Nee Chadaway)

Sheltering from the raid of 19th November 1940
I was in the Bishop Street library when the air-raid sirens first sounded. I was with two friends and we decided to make a run for it. We lived in the West End district of Leicester and had a fair way to go. We got to the far end of New Park Street, when we decided to take shelter.
A stick of bombs were dropped and the first of them landed in Newarke Street, the second in the Newarkes and the third demolished the fish shop in Fitzroy Street, not more than two hundred yards from the shelter, where we were standing.
My mate 'Den' always swore blind that the pilot could see us walking up the Newarkes.     

Billy Wood

War came with a vengeance on the night of 19/20 November 1940 when a cluster of incendiary bombs on Freeman, Hardy and Willis factory caused a huge beacon to present a target. I was under the stairs in the pantry with my mother. My dad kept popping in to check we were OK, he was with the other men in the road doing ARP duty. There was a huge explosion as the Grove Road land mine hit, we were covered in dust from the stairs and the whole house shook. My dad came rushing in to see if we were OK and said that a huge bomb on a parachute was seen to be falling directly on us but veered off at the last second and landed in Vulcan Road. He then dashed off to help.

After the all clear, I hopped over the dividing wall into the entry to the houses of Vulcan Road that backed onto ours and saw the dreadful destruction and confusion that was the lower end of Grove Road. My dad saw me and gave me a whack and sent me home. It was a few days before I got near the scene again. I have heard a tale that the parachute snagged the steeple of St Saviour's Church then rolled down the Grove Road hill before exploding, I don't suppose anyone will ever know the truth of it. My mother had a friend in Grove Road who's house was destroyed, fortunately she was working and the house was empty apart from a large persian cat which was crushed by falling rubble. Looking at the hits of that night it would appear that the major target was the railway line and the bridges of Vulcan Road, Nedham Street, Kent Street and Swain Street. If so, they were pretty close.

Dennis Neal

Schoolboy's prayers almost answered.
During the war I think every schoolchild went to bed and pray that they would wake the next morning to find their school had been bombed! I certainly would place myself at the top of this list and my prayer was very nearly answered on the nights of 19th/20th November 1940.
November 20th 1940.
The sirens sounded again - after the previous nights raid, fear and apprehension reigned. I remember my mother being called to help a next-door neighbour whose daughter became hysterical. I walked into the hallway to find my father standing in the open doorway to see if there was any immediate danger when suddenly he was blown back into the hallway. We both fell into our back sitting room. Then came the sound of an enormous Boom! I recall that suddenly the house filled with fine mist (this proved to be plaster dust from the ceilings which were all cracked like crazy paving.)
We regained our feet, and looking through the doorway saw the glow of a fire about a quarter of a mile away over the Crown Hills area, so my father decided to bike over to the scene. He later reported it would appear that a German bomber had crashed on Steels & Busks Engineering factory, with a full bomb load. We now know that it was of course a parachute mine.
This mine caused widespread damage to the area for almost a mile radius. All properties in surrounding roads, Crown Hills Avenue, Elizabeth Street, Broad Avenue, Copdale Road, Clumber Road, St. Saviours Road, Lang Hill and Coleman Road, suffered damage to various degrees. Almost every house in the immediate area had roofs lifted six inches out of line, chimneys damaged, tiles and slates blown off. Front doors were found halfway up stairways and many hundreds of houses had all windows blown in. Even plate glass windows in Uppingham Road (1 mile away) were blown in. (I heard estimates of 700 properties damaged.) Even houses damaged on the previous nights raid, (Saville Street. etc,) which had been temporally boarded up, had these boards blown in again.
My prayers were partly answered when we turned up at school, (Coleman Road.) to find it had damage to the roof and windows and we were given two days off whilst repairs were undertaken. When we eventually returned to school we found almost sixty pupils were missing. Childhood rumours suggested they had all been killed, but we later found that many of them were evacuees who had returned to London and the rest were pupils whose families had had to move to other districts having been made homeless.
My prayers were not answered! But I think I can claim "a nod and a wink"?
Mr. Terence Cartwright

The night Hitler blitzed our Offey & Chippy.
At 16 years of age, I had spent the day operating a capstan lathe at ‘Adcock & Shipley m/c Tools’ manufacturing, drilling and milling machines and arms equipment (i.e. anti-tank gun belt loaders, etc.), due to a general shortage after events such as Dunkirk. On finishing it was home for a meal and a tidy up. At around 7pm my sister, Iris, and I set off to meet a workmate of mine, Jim Smith, who lodged on Willowbrook Road. Iris and I left home just after 7pm and walked up the street towards Humberstone Road and got as far as Pembroke Street when Parachute Flares started falling over the center of the City. We then heard bombs exploding. Upon hearing this, we decided home was the best place to be, little did we know!

Back at home at 95 Cobden Street, my family had adjourned to our brick built air raid shelter. This shelter was situated behind the house about a couple of feet or so from the outside kitchen wall. Pop’ having been in the last war, knew well what it was all about. He had built a roof between two walls, put a door on the outside and knocked out a doorway from the kitchen, from where we were able to walk through and access the shelter. Fitted out with bunk beds, it was home from home. Only one draw back however, the concrete ceiling would sweat like the dickens and dripped all over the ones that ended up on the top bunks. After a while, my friend Jim turned up. He and I watched the searchlights in the distance, trying to pick out the enemy aircraft. We spotted the odd plane clearing its guns with bursts of fire by their tracer bullets and the reflection of the fires in the city center. At about 10.45pm Pop’ suggested that Jim returned to his lodgings, as his landlady would be concerned. I walked part way with him, then returned, had hot drink and retired to my bunk in our shelter. The whole family listened to the planes going over and the occasional ‘crump’ of a cluster of bombs landing in the distance. Somewhere between 11 & 12pm came the sounds of ‘whoss’ ‘whoss’ of a bomb coming down. Pop’ exclaimed ‘this ones close!’. Then there was a tremendous explosion and we were thrown about on our bunks. The shelter rocked as if it was about to collapse, then silence for a short time followed by the clatter of debris raining on the roof to the shelter, then silence once more. Pop’ and I decided to see what had happened. On opening the passage door to a ‘pucker bombers moon’ it was like day light out there. We could clearly see rubble, slates, bricks, bottles and glass everywhere. The first thing to catch my eye was that the car, normally parked under the covered gateway, had moved forward some five or six yards and the gates were open out-wide onto the pavement. I looked to my left along the Humberstone Road and could see that all the glass was missing from the windows and doors were blown open. Not too bad I thought, then looking to my right it was unbelievable, everything had disappeared and there was a crater some 25 - 30 feet in diameter and about 12 foot deep, approximately 20yds from the front of our house. The off license and general store run by Mr & Mrs. Freestone, that had consisted of a small garage and one shop window, plus four terraced houses in Willow Street, with the entrance across the corner with a huge half moon stone doorstep, two shop windows in Cobden Street, with living quarters above, and beyond this three more adjoining terraced houses, had disappeared completely. The two houses that where still standing were later declared unsafe and demolished. Further inspection of the opposite side of Willow Street revealed that the whole side of the house and chippy was laying in the road, utter despair! My thought’s at the time were ‘Those Goose Stepping Swine’s had destroyed not only our offey but the chippy as well!' ‘There was no way we could let the Nazi so ‘n’ so's win after this.’

On returning to the shelter mum opened the door to point out what she thought was the body of Mrs. Freestone’s cat laying on the edge of the roof, with its bushy tail hanging down the wall. I reached to pull it down when Pop’ said better not as it maybe messy. We then settled for a fitful night. We later found out that the ‘dead cat’ turned out to be Mrs Freestone’s fox fur! a very popular item that ladies draped around their shoulders at dances and posh events, during the thirties. We later learned that the dog, cat and canary had been left in the off License cellar. Whilst Mr and Mrs Freestone had been invited to join the Allan family across the road in their shelter, that had been built in the cellar of their house to accommodate the workers from the adjacent factory. We later learned that the cat was the only one to survive the blast.

 Next morning, we woke to find a policeman posted on our gateway, who informed us he was there to stop any looting. There were bottles of beer and packets of cigarettes every were. The beer was o.k. as we found to people’s delight. When workmen later came to cover the roofs with tarpaulin, there was a settee on our roof ridge between the two chimneys. The shops contents were scattered all over the houses and in the back yards. We had rows of empties stacked along the gateway, but the cigarettes looked o.k. wrapped in cellophane, but the force of the bomb blast had forced dust through the cellophane wrappers on the packets, rendering the cigarettes unsmokable. However, folk got round this by stripping them down and rolled their own. I missed out on this as I didn’t smoke or drink. The large door step had smashed through the steel bars of the gate at about head height; Very close to were Jim and I had been standing earlier, and lay halfway up the passage. The beer engine was found about100yds up Cobden Street. There was a sizeable hole spotted in the railway embankment in line with the reported flight path of the plane that had dropped the bomb, that had done all the damage. The bomb squad was called and an unexploded bomb suspected, sappers took the upper part of a coal truck off it's wheels and dragged it over hole and filled it with sand bags until the bomb disposal personnel were available to sort it out. We had been very lucky compared to other parts of the city. 

I heard only of one casualty in our area, a Mrs Bright was injured when part of the family shelter collapsed. If there were others I never heard about them. Families who’s houses had disappeared or were to badly damaged were rehoused in new locations, and we often lost contact. I don't recollect ever seeing them again, but for Mr Freestone a day or two later. He came round looking for his safe that had been situated in the shop cellar. No one reported seeing it, which puzzled him, as it was sizeable, very heavy and would take two to three people to move it.

The chippy was so badly damaged that it had to be pulled down. I never saw the owner again as they moved out of town. The day the Bomb Disposal Squad arrived to sort out the UXB lying under the train wagon. However, after digging a few feet down, they found the suspected unexploded bomb to be Mr & Mrs Freestone’s safe! They sent for the Freestone’s and they arrived along with the key, to see if the door would open. It did! Pretty amazing due to the fact if was thrown approximately 100yds, clearing a three story factory, before burying itself some feet into the embankment. Mr Freestone collected his takings and went away smiling. Whether he tipped the lads, I never knew.
Mr. E.N. Hubbard, Braunstone Town

The Gunpowder Plot.
 I had just arrived at home from school - the house was empty - my mother was at work, my father in the forces and my brother nowhere to be seen.
A knock on the door revealed a tall thin gentleman who announced he was a Special Detective. He asked for my mother, and when I told him I was alone, he asked if he could come in and search the attic, as my brother had told him there were explosives stored there! My heart sank...

During the war, many ammunition dumps were placed along the country roads. These were never guarded and it was quite easy to gain entry, as a result, they were subject to quite a lot of interest by local teenagers. I remember some dumps near Keyham, contained artillery shells. These shells were stacked in these open-ended sheds, with their noses pointing outwards. I remember one day we played ‘chicken’ with these sheds - the rule of the game was a dare each other to throw a brick at the noses, as you biked past the dump, and hoped you had enough speed to get past before they exploded! - yes! - we were quite ‘mad’ at that age and had no respect for explosives. However, We didn’t know that these shells were not fused or armed and therefore couldn’t explode!

Over a period of time my brother and his friend (who I think lived in Broad Avenue) made frequent visits to these dumps, returning with rucksacks full of various types of explosives. These were shared & stored in our attic, to be later used in our attempts to make fireworks. Many 'experiments' took place, mainly with the use of cordite rings, but results were not very good and most ended up as tubes of newspaper - glued with flour & water (no adhesives available) - flying around the garden like demented bats. Cordite burnt very quickly and produced a lot of gasses. We found that a mixture of sulphur, carbon, saltpetre & iron filings mixed in with cut up cordite then placed in a Coleman’s mustard tin, produced a fantastic fountain effect - much to the horror and concern of my mother, who arrived home one day to find the kitchen ceiling black and her precious, un-replaceable, linen tea towels - burnt to a cinder!

I led the policeman to the attic hatch - he climbed through, and then I heard a startled ‘Bloody hell!’ as he viewed the arsenal within. I had a hoard of four or five National dried milk tins of my own (these were approx. 10"x6" diameter) packed with cordite, which I decided to ‘declare’.
It took a few trips to clear the attic and transfer the material to his large car, which ended up packed with cordite, numerous boxes of detonators, phosphorous and anti-tank grenades. I will never forget the sight of this poor man’s white strained face as he gingerly put the car in gear, and with white-knuckled hands clenching the steering wheel - drove down the road, at a fantastic speed of 2 M.P.H.

The reason for this ‘police raid’, I later discovered, was due to my brother foolishly deciding to sell rings of cordite, at 2 pence a time, to his Gateway schoolmates! (The mind boggles to think of the number of pupils who could have been walking about with pockets full of cordite). This soon came to the attention of the headmaster and the authorities were informed - he was expelled from the school as a result.

The incident, reported in local newspapers, gave rather exaggerated claims, to suggest that we had enough explosives to destroy the Coleman Road estate. Even my own hoard in the milk tins were described as ‘homemade bombs’!

Not long after, we found two boxes of detonators still in the attic - these were kept and disposed of on the V.E. day bonfires - they made quite a nice ‘bang’.
…Guy Fawkes must be in the family tree, somewhere!?
By Terence C. Cartwright, Wigston