大象传媒

This story is by George Martin, and has been added to the site with their permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions. The story was collected by Joyce Gibson, transcribed by Elizabeth Lamont and added to the site by Bruce Logan.
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I was at Seaview Public Elementary School during the war years. There were just me, my mum and my dad at home in the Premier Drive area of north Belfast: as the crow flies not far from the docks and the Corporation Street timber yards. We could easily see the flames and smoke from the timber yards after the air raids.

I remember what was called the 鈥渟mall raid鈥�, shortly before the big Easter Tuesday raid, and the third one on a Sunday. This was all in 1941. There were no air raid shelters in that part of Belfast at the time. We had an oblong table which opened out and when pushed against two walls in our living room it provided a shelter of sorts. Equipped with a single bed mattress, there was just enough room for the three of us to take cover. Every so often, my Uncle George Stewart, a warden, would call in to ask if we were OK. My maternal grandmother had one of those perforated steel shelters which could be erected indoors. It was also quite small but could accommodate two or three people if they didn鈥檛 want to stretch out!

Dad wasn鈥檛 known for his patience. One night, before the All Clear went, he decided to go out and have a look to see what was going on. It had been very quiet and so he assumed that the raid must be well over. However, he had only taken half a dozen steps outside when there was a tremendous BANG! and he staggered back in, deathly pale, and sat down quickly. After a while, he managed to speak: 鈥淭hat explosion nearly took the trousers off me!鈥� Mum often told that story and I can see his white face now as if it was yesterday.

We went to live in Ballymena with some relations of Dad鈥檚, travelling to the LMS station in York Street by coal lorry as there was no public transport at that stage. Luckily, the trains were running and so we arrived in Ballymena to stay for six months, and I attended school there. During our absence York Park was devastated by a landmine, and our house had its windows and the back door blown out. Most of the ceilings came down too, except for my bedroom and the dining room. There were quite a lot of bombs in our part of Belfast and my Dad took me to see a huge crater caused by a parachute bomb: I think it was in the Glandore/Skegoneill Avenue area, within walking distance from home anyway.

Whilst in Ballymena, I had an accident with my knee which unfortunately 鈥渨ent bad鈥� one night and I woke up in the morning with quite a bad wound. There was a soldier also staying in the house and he fetched his field kit and fixed me up. A real wartime field dressing 鈥� I was the envy of my mates!

I was due for an operation in hospital in Dunmurry, but when Dad asked me if I was all right about it, I said that I wanted to go home to Belfast. So, in spite of our ceilings being on the floor, we went back home and I went into hospital from there. When I was discharged, Mum came to fetch me in a taxi which had a gas tank on the roof. Dad had got the windows and door fixed for my homecoming, but the ceilings took a little longer.

It seemed that once the big raids were over, we got our air raid shelters! In fact, one was right outside our house and we kids found that the distance between it and the next one was just perfect for providing the boundaries for football in the winter and cricket in the summer.

Needless to say, our neighbours and ourselves, being Irish, preferred to stand outside the shelters to see what was happening rather than taking cover inside. It was much more interesting, especially one evening. One of our number was a nervous Scottish lady, and there was another neighbour who worked on the trams. At that time there were three different types of trams, one of which had two open ends. If you worked on this type you were issued with a heavy duty waterproof raincoat. Well, this night it had been raining, so our tram conductor came up behind us and shook his coat which made a loud crack like a very close gun-shot. The Scottish lady promptly fainted with fright!

It was generally acknowledged that Belfast was short of anti-aircraft guns and one story which went around was that an aircraft carrier, in Harland鈥檚 for a refit, was towed out into the Lough so that her guns could help us out during the Easter raids.

Other memories are like everyone else鈥檚: the terrifying sound of whistling bombs, clothing coupons, ration books and the dreaded powdered eggs. I can鈥檛 remember disliking them as some did, but then my Mum was a very resourceful cook and did us proud.

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