INTERVIEW
Amazing
escape in
the blitz
Mrs Ursula Thompson was just a baby in her
mother's arms as the bombs fell around them not in England, but Germany. Real-life story!
By Peter White
As Ursula Thompson walks among the
thousands of plants and shrubs she
carefully nurtures at her Island Garden
Centre near Newchurch, she sometimes
pauses to reflect on how lucky she is
just to be there.
Mrs. Thompson’s life has been quite
remarkable, yet it so nearly ended even
before it began. And again when she
was a babe in arms she went desperately
close to being one on the many
innocent victims of the atrocities of the
Second World War.
But this is no ordinary story of a
family who dodged the bombs and
shells that fell around them time after
time. Mrs. Thompson, her parents, two
brothers and one sister were caught
up in the conflict of the war not in
England, but in Germany.
As she was so young, she may never
have known anything about what
really happened, but for a detailed
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account, which her mother Dorothy
Dadd wrote, of the awful happenings.
The graphic, 5,000-word report
spans 19 pages and was carefully and
painstakingly composed on an old
typewriter.
It is never far from Mrs Thompson’s
side, and along with a comprehensive
report she has since written from
stories she was subsequently told by her
mother, it makes an intriguing story of
not just strength and good fortune, but
also of hostility and heartbreak.
Before the war began Mrs Thompson’s
grandfather Edward Dadd – a First
World War prisoner - was sent to work
in Germany by his London-based
engineering company. While he was
there he met and married Elfrida,
and when he occasionally returned to
England he would always holiday on
the Isle of Wight.
The couple had four children - Mrs