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This story was submitted to the People's War website by Julia Shuvalova for GMR Actiondesk on behalf of Joyce Hilton and has been added with her permission. The author is fully aware of the terms and conditions of the site.

CHAPTER 2 - War and the Manchester / Salford Blitz

The day war was declared, September 3rd 1939, Dad and Uncle Arthur were called up. We had moved recently to live opposite Uncle Arthur and Aunty Edna and their son Derek. It was a step up in that the accommodation had a bathroom, although it still had an outside loo. The two Dads were tearfully waved off by us and some of the neighbours. They were the first to go from our street as they were reservists. Our lives were suddenly changed forever. Mum was only 29 and left with two young daughters and although she and my Dad had already lived through one world war, they didn't know how this one would be. It was to be quite a different war, touching millions of civilians unlike the previous one.

My Granny had driven a crane during the First World War at Westinghouse in Trafford Park while Granddad was fighting in Europe. At the end of the Great War Granny's youngest child Ernie died at the age of four from the terrible flu that killed 50 million. My Mother remembered his little white coffin. Gran said God only lent him to keep her company during the war years. Dad's father had been killed on the Somme leaving Dad and his three sisters unwanted by their stepmother. Annie was sent to an aunt in Leeds while Mary and Lena were sent to an institution called Calderstones near Blackburn, where they remained until they were released as mature women. Mary couldn't read or write and Lena was considered 'forward' where boys were concerned. They were labelled mentally and morally defective. Calderstones was a terrible place, the kind of institution that would send shivers up the spines of social workers today!

After marrying Dad, Mum was horrified to hear about Mary and Lena and driven by her sense of justice, moved heaven and earth to obtain their discharge. Scarcely any older than them herself, she became their guardian. Mary and Lena were allowed to stay with us for short holidays, but were constantly checked up on by a Miss Ashton, in case they committed some misdemeanour. After their appraisals by Calderstones' psychiatrists they were eventually released to work in service at the Royal School for the Deaf in Old Trafford, Manchester. In middle age they both married and Mary had a son. Lena married a Greek cook, a jovial and kindly man. They opened a restaurant in New York.

Anyway, back to September 3rd 1939. Dad and his friend Arthur had gone to take up their posting with the R.A.F. perhaps never to come back. Well not until that evening when we were overjoyed to see two handsome air men returning home on a few hours leave. They had been posted to Bowlee Camp at Middleton, Manchester; a barrage balloon station. Later these were to be "manned" by WAAFS (Women's Auxiliary Air Force). Although they had only been gone a few hours, they were greeted as local heroes by our neighbours!

It wasn't long before the air raids started. In the early days, Dad arranged for us to stay with the wife of an RAF colleague at Leigh in Lancashire, not far from Salford, but safer. We couldn't settle however and soon returned to our own home and the bombing. On another occasion we had a short break in a holiday camp at Poulton le Fylde near Blackpool when the bombing hotted up in the city. It was called Fletcher's Camp and one of our neighbours had a holiday chalet there. It was a nice respite. I remember seeing George Formby's house there named "Beryldene" after his wife.

My Gran's youngest sister Annie lived in America, in Akron, Ohio. She wrote to Gran saying my Mother should take us to America for the duration. Mum went to the American Embassy but thoughts of going there were forgotten when a ship was sunk going to Canada, full of evacuees. We decided to take our chances in Salford.

Thankfully we were kept cheerful by happy radio programmes such as Band Wagon, with Arthur Askey and Richard Murdock and the wonderful ITMA (It's That Man Again) with the quick thinking Liverpudlian Tommy Handly and characters like Mrs Mop. "Can I do you now Sir?" - their many catchphrases - became a by-word and Adolph Hitler was a favourite target for their jokes. There was also loveable Robb Wilton with his funny innocent sketches.

We also had radio plays, so beloved by Gran who refused to watch TV even when Mum rented one for her and Granddad long after the war. We enjoyed the music of Henry Hall's Orchestra, Harry Fox, Ambrose and Carol Gibbons. At my mother's funeral my Uncle Stan told me that he remembered my Dad making a crystal radio set for my Gran and Granddad; apparently neighbours gathered round Gran's doorway to listen to the "new technology" in wonder.

Our own radio had been won by my Dad at the Ideal Home Exhibition in Manchester pre-war. I remember Dad going early in the day to look for a radio. Mum was to join him later when our baby sitter had arrived. Mrs Davies, the baby sitter, lived at the end of our Street and occasionally sat with us. She looked like Queen Victoria, wearing full length black dresses, plump and grey hair in a bun. Her age was a mystery. I loved going into her house where she played the record of the "Laughing Policeman" on an old fashioned gramophone.

Apparently Will Hay, the famous star of the comic films, lived in Salford at one time and was a friend of the family. She baked barm cakes on her old fashioned kitchen range and when they were rising in the hearth, they smelt wonderful. She always gave Dad one or two but never gave away the recipe. Dad gave her surplus 'greens' from his treasured allotment. Gran also baby-sat and when she put us to bed she would sing in her soft Irish brogue "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" and "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie", songs that I sang to my son later when he was a young child.

Anyway, back to the Ideal Home Exhibition. When Mum got to the hall Dad was being photographed and fussed by glamorous girls. He had won a Ferguson radio by being the hundredth person to go in carrying a Manchester Evening News under his arm! It was a great event for us and we had that radio for many years. It was powered by accumulators which had to be re-charged, a service that the bicycle shop provided at 2d a time.

By 1940 the war was well under way and bombing raids were quite regular. We soon recognized our own planes and the drone of enemy aircraft. Dad had given my Mother his tin hat from the A.R.P. which she wore to dash in and out of the shelter as she went to make us hot drinks during the raids. He also gave her an air pistol which fired darts. We didn't know what might befall us and had to be prepared. We children found it all pretty exciting. Mum was incredibly brave and never showed her fear in front of us children. In her later years she became very frightened of thunder and lightening and I always wondered whether it was a result of the war.
Churchill's V for Victory campaign was taken up with enthusiasm, with V signs appearing on walls, pavements and even cars. Early in the war the Mayor started a "Spitfire Fund" which raised £6,504 to pay for one. We collected metal, contributing what we could to the war effort, such as pans and railings. I remember one little boy contributing his collection of metal soldiers, very appropriate in the circumstances! We also collected shrapnel (the torn metal from bombs, etc.) for our own fun and swapped bits at school.

The fun was soon to end, however. Death and destruction came on a grand scale on the nights of December 22nd/23rd 1940. The Manchester blitz had started. I was across at Aunty Edna's house to look at Derek's Christmas present, one he had already been given, when we heard the drone of enemy aircraft. I ran home. It was a terrifying night. Dad was home on leave and was soon out with the A.R.P. putting out fires in our street.


From the Manchester Evening News V.E. Day Special Edition;

‘At 6.37pm on the 22nd December the air raid sirens went. Within 2 minutes Luftwaffe incendiary bombs rained down on Albert Square and the surrounding streets. The city was almost defenceless. Later came high explosive bombs and land mines. By 6.24am next morning,when the all clear sounded, a large part of the city centre was rubble. Fires rampaged and many Mancunians were dead. Within two hours of the alert 560 fires had started, many beyond control. At 7.12pm on December 23rd Manchester was virtually defenceless again, the RAF being helpless at night. By 1.23am next morning, when the all clear sounded, 37,152 incendiary bombs, 1,077 high explosive bombs, 95 landmines and 170 flares had been dropped. 92 bombs did not explode and a parachute mine was stuck up a tree. Nazi planes swooped low and machine gunned fire fighters.

There was no Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve. The city centre was closed off and 31 acres within a mile radius of Albert Square lay in ruins. Famous buildings like the Free Trade Hall were damaged, blasts lifted the lead roof off Manchester Cathedral which amazingly dropped back into place, but blew out the windows and doors. Fire raged from Piccadilly to Deansgate and the Bridgewater Canal. 4 out of 10 hospitals were put out of action. At Hope Hospital one wing was lost.

In Trafford Park, the main Luftwaffe target, more than 100 firms were hit. 16 plants or warehouses were totally destroyed and there was severe damage at Metro Vick's Factory, where the Manchester bomber was being developed. Fire appliances were called in from as far afield as Cardiff and London. The fire brigade and police worked miracles. There were some incredible escapes. 450 Mancunians in a shelter in Erskine Street were trapped by debris, all escaped safely.

Thousands of homes were damaged and thousands made homeless. 6,000 in Manchester, 5,000 in Salford and 4,000 in Stretford. The bombed out went to rest centres where gifts poured in.

Not one of the 441 German Raiders were shot down during these two nights of the Manchester Blitz. On the ground there was a lack of equipment and deficiencies in technology. Action was only possible against visible targets. Otherwise the guns fired blind. German aircraft felt so safe that they tuned into the ´óÏó´«Ã½ light programme on their return flight.

The indomitable spirit of the Mancunians, unbroken by enemy attacks, was demonstrated on the morning of the 23rd, when after a sleepless night in the shelters, they came to work though in some cases there was no building to work in’.


These two nights were horrendous. On the evening of the 22nd an incendiary fell through next door's roof. An old lady was in bed and had to be rescued. Up the street one dropped through the roof and into a wardrobe and my Dad had to go around and deal with it. He had to be particularly careful as some of the incendiaries were now of the exploding type, booby trapped to kill or maim those trying to put out the fire. The Croft Laundry at the top of the street was also ablaze. In fact there were fires everywhere - the sky was lit up orange, yellow and red and the noise was deafening.

The raiders dropped their bombs mainly on Salford Docks and Trafford Park, but many dropped on nearby residential areas. Some fell on Weaste Cemetery, very distressing for those with loved ones buried there. A land mine demolished a house in the next street to ours, killing the whole family including an evacuee from London. Others were killed sheltering in the basement of St. John's Church on Langworthy Road where my Mum and Dad were married.

The raids started again the next night, the 23rd December. My school, which was only about 400 yards from our house, received a direct hit. Apparently 100 school properties were hit in the two nights. I was to have sat my scholarship after the Christmas holiday for Pendleton High School but of course now that was in jeopardy. I didn't realise it at the time, but very few working class children were entered for the scholarship until the Education Act of 1945. Mum and Dad had both passed for grammar schools but too poor to take up their places. As it happened this was going to be my only real chance to pass my scholarship.

Looking back it is so easy to see how the courses of our lives were changed. At the time, however, it seemed unimportant. Staying alive was all that mattered.

Manchester United's famous Old Trafford Stadium was left a charred ruin and remained that way for the next few years. Graciously the Blues (Man City) shared their Maine Road ground with the Reds (United). Lancashire's Old Trafford Cricket Ground was another victim of the blitz (at that time it was being used by the Royal Engineers and as a transit camp for soldiers who had escaped from Dunkirk) but cricket still flourished with Lancashire taking part in charity matches all over the country. By 1944 the cricket ground (Old Trafford) was again staging matches with service teams, the ground having been tidied up by the German prisoners who were paid 3/4d an hour!

For reasons of security the extent of Salford's ordeal was not publicised. For all the rest of the country knew, the city had not been raided or suffered the Blitz, yet few cities in England suffered such damage. It was estimated that over the two nights of the Blitz 276 high explosive bombs and 10,000 incendiaries fell within the Salford City boundary.

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