Happy days are here again...

Their closely-knit suburb of St John's, taking in Happy Land North, Happy Land West and Knight Street, was noted then for its warm family ties and strong community spirit.

And stretching out from Happy Land was open countryside, prior to the arrival of post-war housing and the Dines Green Estate.

This seemingly endless expanse of meadows, dissected by Bubble Brook, beckoned the boys and girls of Happy Land as a magnificent open air "playground" in which to roam on foot and cycle.

The youngsters of that era look back fondly and nostalgically on those halcyon days despite the dramatic impact on their lives of suddenly, one day, being at the centre of Worcester's only major German bombing of the Second World War.

Seven people were killed and 60 injured at lunchtime on October 3, 1940, when a Luftwaffe pilot dropped two large bombs aimed at the Meco factory in Bromyard Road. One hit its target but the other ricocheted off a concrete base and blasted into Happy Land, destroying four houses and damaging several others.

It was a fateful event that left a lasting scar, no more so than on one of those who, paradoxically today, still retains such affectionate childhood memories of Happy Land.

Margaret Charles (now Mrs Wainwright of Oakleigh Gardens, Droitwich) was just three-and-a-half when the stray German bomb blasted Happy Land and injured her to the extent she lost her left eye and the hearing in her right ear.

Margaret is now the only living survivor of the three people maimed that day, yet she makes little of it and stresses that she has enjoyed "a great life".

She adds: "The injuries made not much difference to me, and I am still lucky to be alive and to have a wonderful husband of 46 years of marriage, two daughters, five grandchildren and super friends."

And among these close friends are people who grew up alongside her in Happy Land and who will join her at to-night's reunion which she has organised together with Mrs Jill Hundley of Ockeridge.

Margaret's husband, Peter Wainwright was brought up round the corner from her in Knight Street and was one of the Happy Land Six, a gang of young lads born between 1935 and 1938. He quips that the Six would have made Enid Blyton's Famous Five pale into insignificance, such were their antics.

The other members of the Six were Ron Haywood, Ray Dix, Kenny Harrison, Gerald Shirvington and the late John Warner.

Margaret too had her little group of childhood friends then including Jill Jeynes, Pat Connop, Diane Taylor, the late Ann Warner, and Jill Wilde (now Mrs Hundley).

The children of Happy Land mostly attended the St John's Infants and St John's Boys or Girls schools and then went on to Christopher Whitehead.

Down the years, both sets of friends have kept in touch and sprang a surprise party on Margaret and Peter Wainwright when they celebrated their Silver Wedding anniversary.

This gathering at Hallow Village Hall was to be the first proper re-union and became the forerunner of many others in the 21 years since. The Happy Land "chums" - between 12 and 14 of them - have tended to get together for re-unions on the occasion of silver and ruby wedding anniversaries, and the like.

However, tonight's get-together at the Vines Park Bowling Club, Droitwich, is even larger because it has been expanded to take in people who spent their childhood at Happy Land in the years closely before and after Margaret, Peter and their chums. At least 40 people are expected to attend.

"We were inspired to widen the re-union and invite other former Happy Land folk after being contacted by Yvonne Richardson, a Happy Land exile who has been living in Australia for the past 50 years," explains Peter Wainwright.

"She and her sister Valerie and their parents lived opposite Margaret in Happy Land North, and Yvonne recently wrote to us asking if we were still in touch with any people from our childhood days. We have, of course, been able to reply very much in the affirmative, and plan to make a video of to-night's re-union to send to Yvonne in Australia."

Jill Hundley considers it unique that "the tremendous bonds" from childhood have kept the former Happy Land chums meeting up together again regularly for so many years.

THE only still-living victim of the Meco bombing at Worcester has been giving me her memories of that fateful day more than 60 years ago.

Margaret Charles (now Mrs Wainwright of Droitwich) was brought up at No.17 Happy Land North with her parents George and Mildred (Millie) and her brother Michael, now a well-known Worcester builder. Their sister Linda did not arrive until after the war.

Margaret's grandparents, Sam and Mary Benger lived just across the road, and everything was "family orientated" with close and warm family relationships throughout the locality.

"As kids, we had fields and woods, almost on our doorstep, to stroll or cycle out into, and I would also go to my grandfather's five allotments in the shadow of the Bromyard Road Ice Works."

But the Happy Land idyll was temporarily and dramatically disrupted on October 3, 1940...

That lunchtime, Margaret, then just three-and-a-half years old, was sitting at the front window waiting for her father to come home from his work at Heenan & Froude, while baby brother Michael was playing under the table.

"Suddenly, there was this awful blast and our front window was blown in, throwing me right across the room amid flying glass. Family and friends carried me to one of the ambulances that had arrived at the bombing scene, and I was taken to Worcester Eye Hospital where I remained for about two months.

"In the next bed to me was Doris Tindall, the Meco canteen lady, who was totally blinded, partly deafened and badly disfigured by the bombing. I had a wonderful surgeon who, though having to remove one eye, saved the sight in the other and ensured I had no other lasting post-operative scars.

"Even so, it must all have been distressing for my mother, and everybody in St John's knew me afterwards as the girl who had been a victim of the Meco bombing. However, I did not allow the loss of an eye and the need for an artificial one to get me down, and everything started to be really rosy when I became the girlfriend of Peter Wainwright at 16."

Margaret's courageous outlook has also enabled her to cope uncomplainingly through life with another legacy of the bombing - being deaf in the right ear and hard of hearing in the other, disabilities requiring the use of hearing aids.

Margaret's grandparents' house on the other side of Happy Land North, also suffered some bomb damage. The rear wing of the property including part of the kitchen and the lavatory caught the blast, together with Sam Benger's aviary and his pet birds.

In fact, Margaret's husband Peter likes to recall the perhaps comical scene - rather like an old Music Hall joke - of Sam Benger just emerging from the lavatory and seeing it suddenly disappear in a pile of rubble.

Certainly not funny, however, was the effect of the bombing on Mrs Berger who suffered deafness and was "frail and never the same again afterwards".

Margaret points out that in the immediate wake of the bombing, residents of several houses in Happy Land North, including her parents and family, were evacuated to other parts of Worcester, while their homes were repaired.

She remembers the surnames of most of the Happy Land North families of the time such as Jeynes, Bray, Jordan, Richardson, Lewis, Parker, Hencher, Allen, Walker, Clark, Band, Gregory, Jackson, Gulliver, Meredith, Cole, Dix, Preece, Baker, Stinton, Lee, Powell, Bennett and Middleton. Sons and daughters of several of these wartime Happy Land families will be at this evening's re-union at Droitwich.

Peter Wainwright, the son of chauffeur Albert Wainwright and wife Jessie, was brought up at Number 36 Knight Street, and he too has vivid memories of the Meco bombing. "People had seen this German plane circling about for some time in broad daylight, and it swooped so low they could clearly see the swastikas painted on its side.

"When the bomb exploded in Happy Land North, it shook our house, and father scooped us up and took out to shelter under some fruit trees. Soot poured down our chimney and we found on returning that our lunch, laid out on the dining table, had been ruined."

The four houses, Numbers 24, 26, 28 and 30 Happy Land North, were devastated by the stray bomb, but amazingly no-one inside them was killed or seriously injured.

However, one of the residents, a Mrs Jordan, had a particularly miraculous escape from death. She was totally buried under the rubble as her house collapsed around her, but rescue workers eventually dug her out alive and with only comparatively minor back injuries. Her husband was for many years the gatekeeper at the City Electricity Works.

After October 3, 1940, the shells of the bombed houses became a new adventure playground for Peter Wainwright and the gang of the Happy Land Six.

"Margaret's grandfather, Sam Benger was sort of unofficial guardian of the bombed properties and would reprimand us and shout to us to go home whenever he saw us among the ruins. Nevertheless, we were not to be put off, though one day our potentially dangerous playground could have been a scene of a serious accident.

"One of the Six, Gerald Shrivington, who now lives in Himbleton Road, Worcester, was climbing up a rickety staircase in one of the houses and fell right down the middle of the property, landing and breaking his leg.

"We carried him home but, after knocking the door, we ran off leaving him half way up the garden - so frightened were we of his mother's reaction!"

"Overall, they were brilliant times in Happy Land back then and we enjoyed nothing better than going out into the countryside to build camps," recalls Peter.

Jill Wilde (now the wife of Norman Hundley) also has clear memories of the Meco bombing.

Her parents, self-employed builder George Wilde and his Nora lived at the corner shop at Number 2 Happy Land North - alas, a property no more in that use. It was run for many years by Jill's mother and was "the hub of the area".

"Mother sold virtually everything - groceries, fruit and veg and the like. She even made her own ice-cream and was the first person in St John's to have a canning machine. She worked extremely hard and not only ran the shop but also brought up four children - my brother Colin and my sister Jean (now Mrs Southern) who both live in Worcester, and my late sister Avis.

"I have particular memories of war rationing when mother had no end of coupons to count, and when we would have to weigh out lard, cheese, butter and other commodities in two or four ounce rationed packs.

"Dad was in the Home Guard and built us a small air-raid shelter in the garden. He sometimes took us down there to listen to the wind-up gramophone he had installed.

"On the day of the Meco bombing, our shop window was smashed by the blast and a lot of stuff went out through it together with my grandmother, Mrs Maria Wilde, who was just visiting us to help out. Fortunately, she was unhurt," recalls Mrs Hundley.

Her sister, Mrs Jean Southern of The Mead, Comer Gardens also recalls the events of that fateful day when she was just a girl.

"My main memory of the bombing is of seeing all the jams, pickles and sauces, plus bags of flour and sugar scattered all over the floor and of having to help clear up the mess. Beforehand, I had been standing in the back garden, shouting to my mother that it was a German plane overhead."

Mrs Hundley stresses that all the "hard work and hard living" obviously did her mother no harm because Nora Wilde went on to celebrate 60 years of marriage to husband George and lived to the grand old age of 95,and died only last August.

Interestingly too, Jill's sister Jean and her husband Ron Southern lived for a time in one of the new houses eventually built on the Happy Land site of the four houses devastated in the bombing.

Mrs Southern explains: "The pair of semi-detached houses was built by my uncle Bob Smith, who kept the ironmonger's business in St John's. His daughter Iris originally lived in one of them, while the other was bought by Peter Curnock, the conjuror. We later bought the house first occupied by my cousin Iris."

A few years afterwards, however, Jean and Ron Southern moved back to the place of her childhood when they bought the shop at Number 2 Happy Land North from her parents and ran it through the 1960s.

Margaret Wainwright believes the VE-Day street party at Happy Land was perhaps the pinnacle of their halcyon childhood times.

"Tables were laid out all down the middle of the street, and the women had gone to great ends dying everything red, white and blue to make bunting which hung across the road and on house fronts," she said "and goodness knows where all the food and drink came from in those days when there was so much rationing.

"A horse had been hired to give rides to the children but at some point Peter and the Happy Land Six led it away to Bubble Brook, and the men had to go out in search of it, giving the lads quite an ear-bending for their kidnapping exploits.

"I well remember too that a chap called Fred Cole dressed up as Hitler and played tunes on a banjo. Perhaps not surprisingly, he was pelted at the end of the evening with all the spare jellies and blancmanges people could lay their hands on.

"As darkness fell, a big bonfire was lit in the middle of the street and it fetched up all the tar underneath. The hole was there for weeks. The adults danced in the road until it was nearly light in the morning. I feel asleep on the front doorstep and had to be carried up to bed.

"They were wonderful times."