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This story is taken from an interview with Joyce Newell, and has been added to the site with their permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions. The interview and transcription was by Bruce Logan.
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[You were born in Manchester?]
Yes, 1922.

[were you evacuated from Manchester?]
No. I was at that age — 17. Not married — single. I knew lots of people that were killed. I knew somebody that was in the merchant navy and he was killed. His ship was blown up. And I knew quite a lot of people, mother used to give them up for tea, and that’s how I met them. There were different people that used to come in for that. Americans and — not Australians, the other ones — New Zealand people. And we knew all the boats they used to ride to them. Passing through, just. You had to give them afternoon tea. It was a YMCA. And then she used to do a wee concert for them.

[After you left school, did you get as job?]
My father was in business in Manchester. I stayed and I helped him out

[war industries?]
Making raincoats. In Manchester. My mother was a Yorkshirewoman. She came from []. They got married and lived in Manchester.

[Were your brothers conscripted?]
My brother was an invalid. He was called Morris, and … my father had a big house on the main street and the [] above it. And my bro, who was younger than me — well, I was, I forget how old I was when he was born. When I was born. My brother was — I’m trying to remember — Morris was … and Gilbert was 17 when I was born. That’s right.
There was a Shop. Living above the shop. And the men were working on the roof, and Morris went up the ladder, and got halfway up and was afraid and fell. And hurt his back. In those days we weren’t used to that sort of thing — there was no Health Service.
He became an invalid, and he died in his 30s. He didn’t do anything. My other brother was a civil servant in Manchester. He was called Gilbert.

[Which part of the Civil Service was he in?]
I can’t tell you. It was just the Civil Service.

[Were you in Manchester when it was bombed?]
Oh yes. We used to go into the centre to do the shopping. And the car park, the bus deport was bombed. There were no buses. And there was a person that was living just below us, in a house, and she stayed in bed during the air raid. Well, I would have preferred to go into the shelter myself, but she had problems, claustrophobia, and she stayed in bed.
They dropped a bomb. It sort of went down over her legs when she was in bed. And the row of houses were demolished and all bombed.
We lived up Stockport Rd, just outside the town, and … Just round the corner from us there was a place where there was soldiers, and the Planes used to come over to see where this place was. They dropped bombs round there, and didn’t really get the place. But they got one building and the soldiers that were in it, they’d gone down into the Cellar, but they bombed it and they affected the Gas mains. And that killed them, beneath the cellar.
If you’re walking along in an air-raid you had to go under shop doorways, and different things, to get back home. There was something else they dropped … They lit. I forget what you call them.

[Flares?]
I think that’s what you call them. To see where they were bombing.

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Gilbert injured his spine, and wasn’t accepted for the army. He joined the Home Guard. He went out during airraids.
In blackouts you needed a torch to walk at night. The batteries weren’t hard to get.
The only alcohol available was beer and scotch.

Dunkirk evacuation, 1940 — there were some small boats from Manchester [used on the shipping canal].

Joyce had a friend in the ATS, who was killed on AAA duty in South of England. It was a mixed-gender battery; women were conscripted unless they were
A] in an reserved occupation
B] too young or too old

Clifford Neeson, the boy who lived next door to Joyce, was conscripted into the army. He died during the war.

Joyce’s husband built roads and bridges in Sierre Leone. A doctor from Omagh was there too. Freetown was the capital.
En route to Sierre Leone they were bombed and menaced by a U-Boat. Luckily the ship got away.

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