大象传媒

On the night of 18th March 1941, 'Jerry' decided to offer Scarborough a chance of 'redevelopment'. It was to be a very sustained bombing raid. Mum had just returned from visiting Muriel in the Hospital, and had told me to pop off up to bed. I refused to go, this must have been about 8.00pm. mum and I had a 'conversation', the outcome being, she would read me a story, then I would go to bed. Just before 9.00pm the Air Raid Warning Siren went. I still would not go to bed. Then the bombs started to fall. We could hear the steady crump as they seemed to be creeping ever nearer. Mum thought they were after the hotels on the sea front at first, then they started to get closer. VROOM! - Christ that was close, sounds like the Gas works which were just a mile up the road and directly to our left. The next we knew was a whistle sounding, a bang on the door and a guy in a raincoat fastened tight round his middle, with a tin hat on his head and a bag over his shoulder shouting - " Get yourself out of there and down to the shelter Missi's!"
Now me being me, bloody minded as usual, and not wanting to go to bed, was unceremoniously dumped into the wooden box which was to be packed with our goods when we moved overseas, currently on it's end and in use as a Toy box. This my mother decided was the safest place to dress me , after all it was wood, substantial and being some four feet by two feet by two feet deep, would offer some protection to us both. Well not so. CRUMP! - CRUMP! - CRUMP! Jerry dropped a stick of bombs which fell along Stoney Haggs behind where we lived. The effect was devastating. Our crouching bodies, which in my case was still in a state of semi-dress, were caught up in the blast which thrust us out from the brick and wooden safety which we had sought, and which had been our entrance hall to the flat. The tremendous Whoosh! which I will remember to the day I die, seemed to take the last vestige of air from our lungs, yet lifted us and propelled us backwards down the steps, over the wooden gate, across the road to deposit us in a heap outside the front door of the house opposite!
I remember my mother being helped to her feet by the same man who had shouted at us to "Get out of there" but a few moments ago. No longer neat and tidy, his coat billowing around him, filthy black and blood stained, with his helmet looking as if it was trying to strangle him. Yet strangely enough all was silent around us, it was quite some time before I was to realise that I could hear nothing at all. The bomb blast had left me temporarily deaf, I had blood on my face, driblets running from my ears and nose and was to thank this night for a start to ear troubles which would plague me for many years to come. Thank you Mr Hitler, weren't you kind to us. But this was not to be the end to the night. They sat Dennis Taylor and I in the fire place, God knows what for, 'cos it could not have been very safe there. However after a short while we looked up the chimney to see a glow above us, eventually we managed to attract the attention of one of the grown-ups, which was not easy when you could see lips moving, but all you could hear was the swishing sound the sea makes when it runs back over loose gravel on the beach. Anyway the top and bottom of our problem was the house we were sheltering in was well and truly on fire! So out we all rushed, to be shepherded down the hill, which was Seamer Moor Road, toward the air-raid shelter at the bottom on Seamer Road. Suddenly mum and I were grabbed by another man. Small in stature, almost slight, with an old trilby hat, jammed cockily to one side and an old rain coat, tied across his middle with the belt. Even in the flickering half light of the burning house, we knew who it was, Grandpa Nellis. Now Grandpa Nellis lived some six miles away, almost in the Old Town. When the raid had started, he had decided to see if we were alright and had set off to walk up to see us. Now at this time they were replacing some of the old sewer pipes at the end of Seamer Road. When Grandpa had arrived some two miles from where we were living, the Police had stopped him because it was obvious that the Bomber's were having a go at the Railway marshalling yard, the Engine sheds and the Gasworks which stood behind them. Any hit would have caused an awful lot of damage. Grandpa was very frustrated at being so close and yet so far, but not to be out done, what did he do, when the Policeman's back was turned he bobbed into the empty sewer pipes, which were waiting to be laid. Tying up his raincoat he then crept through the pipes, running any gaps in between until he had reached Hinderwell School. Having played football for Scarborough as a younger man and as the Football Ground lay next to the School, he took off over the fields to reach us the hard way. Was mum glad to see him. He escorted us down to the shelter, where we were to stay until the all clear had sounded, not that I heard it! Then it was back to Grandma's, following the same route that Grandpa took to reach us. At about 2.00am we reached No 4 Oxford Street, Grandma and Grandpa Nellis's home. I don't remember much more of that night, but I think I slept in my mother's arm on the couch in the back parlour. Later that morning, it was along the road to visit Doctor Stalker, who was to examine us and pack us off to the Hospital for some tests on my hearing, which, I am glad to say did return to something near normal after some time and treatment, which included learning to lip read. Another shock was to greet us when we reached the Hospital, for the Children's Ward had been evacuated because an aerial torpedo had landed in the garden just two beds from the one my sister had been sleeping in! When Grandpa Nellis and my mother went back up to our flat in Seamer Moor Road, to see what could be salvaged, when they went into the bedroom which my sister and I usually slept in, they found that the bombing of the night before had brought the chimney stack crashing down, through the roof and across my bed. If I had gone to bed as I had been told I would have been crushed to death under the weight of the fallen masonry. God what a night that had been! Plus to cap it all, at our end of town, apart from structural damage to our house and the houses around where we lived, all 'Jerry' had managed to do was blow some great, big holes in Stoney Haggs Hill, to the West, and across the Donkey Fields on Oliver's Mount, to the East, which did not do the donkey's a lot of good, and make a direct hit on an empty gasometer!

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