大象传媒

We lived on North Hull Estate but my father, who had quite an extended family with four sisters, all lived in the Hessle Road area around Villa Place and Porter Street. On May 8th and 9th 1941 the massive blitz in Hull took place and he sadly lost three of his sisters, Violet, Jessie and Lily whilst his fourth sister, Ivy, was very seriously injured in Porter Street flats. In addition Uncle Tom, who was firewatching at Villa Place School, died when the clock tower fell on him. Three year old cousin Eunice was killed in the communal shelter whilst cousin Frank, who should have joined the RAF the previous Saturday, twisted his ankle and his call up was deferred for one week. That sadly included this night and he was killed. I particularly remember the peculiar smell around the ruins and the fact that all the places I knew so well, such as Hammonds and the Wright Street Museum just disappeared. And at seven years old this must have been difficult for my parents to explain. I got another uncle killed the next night in Temple Street when one of his children in the communal shelter complained of being thirsty. He dashed back into the house to get her a drink and was killed by a high explosive on the way back. On these two nights my father was firewatching on the top of the Co-operative building at the corner of Greenwood Avenue and Beverley Road and saw the devastation of his family in the flames in the centre of the town, although the real knowledge didn't come to him until the next morning when he visited to see if they were all OK after the blitz. It's one of life's ironies that the husbands and fathers of those who were killed survived North Africa, Burma and the Italian and European campaigns and came home safe after the war.
We don't know truly where those loved ones are, except that they are in a communal grave in the Northern Cemetry on Chanterlands Avenue. Please don't let it happen.

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