大象传媒

May 7th, 8th and 9th 1941

It was the evening of the day following my disgraceful incident of feeding the farmers ducks with Plasticine. I was still in confinement in Mrs Kirkby's cottage as a punishment for my escapade and due to the fact that I was only able to hobble about with my severely cut knee.

For some reason I could not get to sleep and in the darkened bedroom the window curtains suddenly started to undergo a brighter light transformation.

Outside in the back garden I could hear Mrs Kirkby and mother in conversation; it must have been nearly midnight, what on earth was happening? I crept out of bed put on my siren suit over my pyjamas and limped out into the back garden. Mrs Kirkby and mother were at the end of the garden and Mrs Kirkby was pointing to a huge red-and-white glow in the sky, north easterly from where we were standing. I looked towards the red glow of Mrs Kirkby's cigarette, "Kitty, something terrible is happening over Hull tonight", said Mrs Kirkby.

In that far distance of about 6 miles we could see the dancing bands of light arcing up into the sky. All three of us stood in that inky black back garden as the angry redness over the Hull area and night sky seemed, if anything, to increase in size and colour. I edged between Mrs Kirkby and Mother, placing my left hand in Mrs Kirkby's knurled hand and my right hand in mum鈥檚 hand. After what seemed like an hour or so, we silently turned and went back into the cottage I suppose I uneasily dropped off to sleep a short while after.

The next morning after breakfast I hobbled off to the village shop to pick up the morning paper. One or two of the villagers were in the shop where all
the talk was of very heavy bombing of Hull across the water of the night before. I folded the morning paper and set off back to the cottage.

Uncannily, that evening the same ominous events occurred again and as midnight approached all three of us struggled again in the darkness of Mrs Kirkby's back garden, lit up again from 6 miles away, by the flames of Hulls second successive night of heavy bombing by the Germans.

The next day mother decided to take a trip back to Hull to meet up with Dad who was still lodging at his mother's house in Ringrose Street. Mother and I caught the bus to new Holland in the morning and took the new ferry across the Humber, back to Hull. We stood on the deck of the ferry as we approached the Hull side we could see the devastation to the jetties and dock areas close to the River Humber. Smoke seemed to be wreathing upwards into the May sunshine.

As we walked from the ferry to Queen Victoria Square to catch the trolley bus to Anlaby Road, mother and I walked through Humber Street where heavy bombing had taken place over the last two evenings. Queen Victoria Square itself was black and sooty and the statue of Queen Victoria was covered from top to bottom in black grime. The roof of the City Hall had received a direct hit with gaping holes in its structure. As I hobbled alongside side Mum, everywhere we looked was a scene of full damage and devastation. When we reached Ringrose Street, amazingly they had not been bombed during the previous two nights.

Sadly dad told us that our rented terraced house, down Tranmere Avenue in Redbourn Street, had been declared uninhabitable by reason of the recent bomb damage. Dad took me to one side and said to me solemnly; "Tex once your new brother or sister is born in South Ferriby, I will be arranging for all our family to live together again in Hull. That's a promise!

Dad gave mum and I a big hug as we set off on the return journey that afternoon in May 1941; back to the peace and solitude of South Ferriby via the bomb damaged ravages of Wartime Hull. As mother and I sailed across the Humber towards new Holland, we gazed back at the smoke still rising from a bomb damaged Hull. "Never mind Tex," said Mother reassuringly, "it will soon pass and we will all be back together in Hull very soon; as soon as Junior is born and Dad arranges another house!鈥�

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