大象传媒

After leaving carr vale school at 14yrs old iwent to work at the local vrickworks for afew months, then decided to go in to hotel work and so became a page boy in Nottingham. i wanted a promation and so mved to Buxton as a porter and waiter for the Bill-ith-thorn hotel of Hurdlow situated on the A515 Buxton, Ashobourne road.
it was there on a night in January 1941 that the air raid siren sounded. beiong in the country meant that not much attention was paid as most of the raids were aimed towards Sheffield. One night, when on firewatch duty, we, the manager and i checked out side to see incendiaries being dropped twards Hartlington. they looked as if they were going in large semi circles from Hartlington round to Monyash. by then all the country side was illumineted with flames, i remember the manager saying to me get ready we are in the centre of the ring, at that time large bombs were being dropped over towards Harper Hill where a bomb dump was, these bombs missed the dump and hit a church in Earl Sterndale. We were told about it the next morning, as the young lady who brought the milk to the hotel was due to get married at the church on the saturday. It so happened that the wedding still took place but in the shell of the church and in front of a makeshift alter.
After the morning of of the air raid i went down into Monyash to see if there was any damage. A lot of the locals were collecting the metal incendairy fins for souverniers they were about nine inches lolg a hollow. I took two home to Carr Vale but my mother would not have them in the house, so i brought them back to the hotel and they stood on the mantlepiece in the tag room as holders for lighter spills for quite a long time.

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