Useful resources for my own research, and yours.
Please find details below of resources I have found particularly useful in my research, as well as credits for sources of information.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC)
Find My Past Generally I find Ancestry easier to use but FMP has an invaluable facility to search the 1939 Register by address.
Home Front Legacy 1914-1918 Their diligence in photographing the 1917 railway platform, a relic of the National Aircraft factory, still visible on Princes Way was my big break in working out where the British Pathe film had been shot
Kenley Revival for the information about a survivor of the bombing at Bourjois
Joshua Levine “Voices from the Blitz and the Battle of Britain”
Bob Ogley “Surrey at War”
Berwick Sayers “Croydon and the Second World War” including the Roll of Honour, the list of people from Croydon who were killed between 1939 and 1945 or who died in the borough
Kaye Webb (editor) “Lilliput Goes to War”
Ben Wicks “Waiting for the All Clear” – the original motivation for this whole work was when I read someone recalling that 300 girls had been killed at a scent factory next to Croydon Airport. While that turned out to be ‘fake news’ the real story was a fascinating one.
While events were still in living memory, Douglas Cluett, Joanna Bogle and Bob Learmouth wrote a book called “Croydon Airport and the Battle of Britain” – without this a lot of the eyewitness statements and details would have been lost.
Anton Rippon for his diligence to find the fascinating details about Croydon in the local newspaper in Exeter!