大象传媒

This account was related to Denis Price of the 大象传媒 People's War Team at the 大象传媒 Open Centre, Hull, by Mrs. Hazel Price.

I would have been twenty in April 1941 when the bombing of Hull was getting very bad. My husband was in the army down in Devon and I was waiting to join him with our first son who was eighteen months old. At this time I stayed with my parents at 18 Withernsea Street, Stoneferry ,Hull, which had Earle's Cement Works at the back of us at the bottom of Dalton Street.
I always remember that Earle's own siren would go off a couple of minutes before the Hull City Siren did, to warn us of an air raid, how Earle's managed this I don't know. What was funny was how our dog Paddy always sensed that sirens were going to go off and beat us to the backdoor where he would wait for us all to rush for the shelter in the yard.
We all had things ready that we might need during the night in the shelter and I remember how important candles were. Torches would have been better but they were a luxury as batteries were in very short supply. My younger sister Cora always went to bed with her hair in rollers which she would take out before joining us in the shelter. As she said, 'If we get bombed nobody's going to find me with my hair in rollers!.'
The first bombing down the street I recall was when the bombs fell on the road in front of our houses. Two doors away from us were Mr. and Mrs. Kirk, their house was badly damaged and neighbouring houses belonging to Mrs.Allen and Mrs. Bond. Ours escaped serious damage and nobody I knew was hurt on this raid although the street was only open to pedestrians because of the damage. We still had to live in our houses as there was nowhere else to go.
The tradesmen that normally came down the street on horsedrawn carts had to stop near the Kirk's house as they couldn't get any further. One I will always remember was the fishmonger , Duggy. His horse was a beautiful animal which seemed so out of place pulling his fish wagon amongst all those ruins.

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