大象传媒

In 1939 we lived in a house at the cul-de-sac end of a street in Salford.
A short distance away from the rear of the house was a railway marshalling yard.

On Christmas Eve, the air raid warning must have sounded because I was downstairs playing with my new blue train set. My next recollection is of scrambling over bricks and rubble in the hall, urged on by my Mother to get out of the house and into the brick shelter built in the center of the street.
Next morning my mother complained of cramps in her knees as I had slept on her knee all night, The shelter was so full of people.

Presumably German bombers, intent on boming Manchester and Liverpool docks had followed the glint of the marshalling railway lines and dropped bombs in our area. The bomb blasts had collapsed houses in our street at the open end; and we were not able to leave the street without clambering over the rubble even though we had nowhere to go.
My Farther worked during the day and became the Air Raid Warden at night, he informed us that the bomb blast had lifted his waistcoat from the kitchen door hook, swirled it across the room, emptying pocket contents onto the floor, and then hung it on the spout of the kettle at the fireplace.
One battered blue coach was all that was found of my trainset. My Father told also of a Warden who had lost the sight in one eye when he threw a sandbag onto an incedary bomb which exploded into his face. We spent perhaps one or two more nights in the shelter, until we moved to stay with my aunt and family. Sometime later we heard that the brick shelter had been demolished in another air raid.

After a while we aquired another house in the Seedley area but air raids continued and when the warning sounded my Mother would gather me up out of bed and carry me 200 yards to a shelter which resembled a "catacomb", with low wattage lights, beneath Langworthy park locally known as "Chimney Pot" park. The park walls were inward sloping and approximatly 20ft high, and when in the park the view was of the chimney pots of the surrounding houses. A nearby street is named Reservoir St.

My Mother and I spent lots of nights in that shelter, and above us in the park was a searchlight and a barrarage balloon anchorage. A gentleman died one night in the shelter and he couldnt be moved out until the next early morning when the "All Clear" signal sounded.

I often wonder if the "catacomb" still exists. When the war ended we as children played in those dark shelters and it was great fun, and a feat to climb those sloping park walls. I never succeeded in climbing the wall I tried often - but i saw boys do it, they were probably older than I at the time.

Bill Hefferan
Southport
January 2004

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