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The V2 rocket was dropped in Radcliffe in 1941 and it landed on a chicken farm, which supplied the local American army. All the chickens on the farm had to be slaughtered. So everyone in Radcliffe and the surrounding area had chicken for Christmas that year, something we never had.
When the bomb dropped my dad was standing at the front door and all that was left was a ‘red hot door handle’ in his hand, all his hair and eyebrows where burnt off, it was terrible. The school and all the factories were bombed out and the local boat yard was hit. All us kids were blown out of bed by the blast. At home you were only allowed to have small fires in the grate for safety reasons. At night you had to damp in down and put on nutty slack to keep it low.
In Lowercroft lodge at Ainsworth, we used to go swimming from school to meet the Americans. I used to get 5 Winston cigarettes for my dad, nylons for my mum and a dollar and chewing gum for me.
My worse time was when I had 10 boils on my back and I had to go to Quay Street for treatment, I was 13years old at the time. I came into Manchester with my mother and there had been a bomb dropped the night before. I saw severed limbs on the ground and blood running down the walls. My mother took her head scarf off and put it around my eyes and lead me through Manchester as if I was blind, she didn’t want me to see any more awful sights.
We had a prisoner of war camp in Radcliffe at Seed Street now Bury Rd. There were Germans and Italians there. If the prisoners were good they were allowed to my toys for the local children. My brothers were given some of the toys.
I was a weaver at 14 years of age, running 4 looms. We made ‘gun cloth’ for cocooning all the ‘sticky out bits’ on the tanks etc as camouflage. It was announced over the load speaker that ‘the covers were off’ and that was when we knew the war was over.

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