大象传媒

Bradford by the Sea
August 14th 2004

To be talking about playing out, seems a strange thing at my age now! But that鈥檚 what I Derek; a little Yorkshire lad at the age of eight was doing on a lovely morning in Manningham Bradford, I was off school, if I remember correctly.

Suddenly things did not seem right, my Mum, Grandma, and some of the neighbours, in the Terraced street all came out crying and calling to each other, the war is on! One of them had heard the announcement on the radio, that鈥� War was declared鈥�.
This behaviour I could not understand, I must admit at that age I thought this might be good!

It was disappointing because nothing seemed to happen for a while, as a lad of eight, I thought every one was going to knock on each other鈥檚 door and start scrapping.
Well I soon got the hang of it all, men started digging out air raid shelters on Drummond road fields! These were made to shelter large numbers of people with wooden bench seating down the sides. Drummond Road fields were really spare ground on each side of the road, where the Tide or fairground set up every year.

The next thing I remember, was men with burning equipment removing all the iron railings from everybody鈥檚 property, there was non left anywhere, only the stubs standing above the stone work, which can still be seen to this day! All were melted down for the war effort. I also remember the collecting of anything like pans etc, made of aluminium. Us lads did a lot of collecting with an old hand cart it was good fun!

After what I think seemed to be about a year, I had the biggest blow of all. My Dad was called up to join the army, on the day he left home, he just said, well I鈥檓 off then! After he had left, I recall I was walking down the street, I could hardly see for tears and I did鈥檔t want to meet any of my mates because us Yorkshire lads were supposed to be tough. A year or so went by and Dad was invalided out of the army with a heart and chest problem. Could have been all the Wild Woodbine fags he smoked at the time. After a spell in hospital, he came home wearing hospital blues, as they called them, a uniform of royal blue, and very rough material as I recall.

It was not long before Dad had a letter arrived saying he had to do some essential war work, and to report to Trimpel ICI refinery at Heysham near Morecambe, where aviation fuel was produced for the war effort and in big demand at the time.

To my delight a house was requisitioned for our family at Morecambe in Lord Street just up from the promenade and the Tower, a lovely old building built with minarets on all it鈥檚 corners, with a cinema, bars, caf茅, and a ballroom, with a round sprung floor. Moving to the seaside, I was over the moon, but my sister Renee was six years older than me. I was now ten years old, and Renee sixteen, she found it very hard to move to Morecambe and leave all her friends behind,

To live in Morecambe during the war was brilliant, Bradford by the sea, people called it, there were so many Bradfordians here! My sister soon settled down, and enjoyed this wonderful open-air place after living in a city, and made many new friends. They were such friendly people, settling down here was very easy for us all.

The R A F were billeted in all the hotels and did their square bashing on the promenade, Morecambe was full of the boys in blue they were everywhere, dance halls, picture houses, and drill sergeants shouting at them on the promenade. Some of them spent time here just waiting for a posting. My sister met one of the R A F boys, and later married him; he had completed all his missions with bomber command and was waiting in Morecambe for his next posting. He was a lad from Wales called Albert a navigator in the R A F. They settled down in Morecambe later going to Australia with their two boys on the 拢10.00 each scheme Australia was running at the time to populate the country.

As for me, I married a lovely Lancashire lass called Pam, I met Pam at the Tower, in the dance hall, and we are still dancing today, and well past our Golden Wedding. At 73 and Pam 71 years old, we are still enjoying Bradford by the Sea. Sadly the Tower has gone now! To make way for a Bingo Hall, one of Morecambe鈥檚 gems! If it were still here to day it would be an asset to the town. Oh! How the war stirred us all up. Derek.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.