大象传媒

As told to Alan Brigham, Hullwebs.co.uk, 10/06/2005

We lived in the Sculcoates area and during May of 1941 the raids got very severe. We were close to the electricity works down Sculcoates Lane, an obvious target, and all around us was the industrial area.

The raids got very severe and, due to the severity and continuity of them my mother decided that we would all sleep in the communal air-raid shelter in the street where we lived, Exchange Street, every night. In fact the house that I am relating to is still there. We were a family of four children, at that time; my sister was 11, I was 7 and my youngest brother was four. Now we regarded this as a great adventure rather than anything scary. Even during the war it was all just one big adventure. We were never scared 鈥� probably due to the diplomacy of our parents and the way that people were in those particular times. People were dying around us, getting killed, and it didn鈥檛 strike home. I mean, you鈥檇 go to school one day and Tommy Smith who sat behind you would didn鈥檛 turn up. The excuse the teachers used to give was that they鈥檇 say 鈥淭ommy鈥檚 moved to another school.鈥� They鈥檇 never say that he鈥檇 been killed in an air raid.

This particular incident was one night in May. Dad was a labourer at the gas works, not the ones down Wincolmee, the one in St Mark鈥檚 Street, it was known as East Hull. This night he was at work on the night shift, which was 10pm to 6am. Come the evening, mam put the three of the younger in the shelter, we used to sleep on wooden bunks that were three high. My eldest brother had the top one, then my sister and then me and my younger brother used to sleep end to end in the bottom, and that鈥檚 how we spent the night.

During that evening we had a particularly severe raid, we were already in the shelter and mother came across whenever the sirens went off. She only ever came across if there was a raid as we would all be sleeping in the bunks. The shelters were split into four compartments and usually a family claimed one of these compartments. We had ours and it was right on the end of the block of four. The raid lasted and lasted until we all eventually fell asleep. The all clear came in the early hours 鈥� it had been a particularly long raid. Mum got up 鈥� we woke with her moving about but we weren鈥檛 getting up until about 8 o鈥檆lock! Her duty, with my dad being at work and not coming off at 6 o鈥檆lock in the morning, was to go across, light the fire and get dad鈥檚 breakfast ready for preparation. He used to go on his pushbike off to work and it was about a twenty minute ride. This particular morning, with there being so much damage, he had to take a lot of detours and it made him a little bit later in getting home.

Mum set about her chores, cleaning the fireplace and started to lay the fire. Then she went into the scullery and started preparing dad鈥檚 breakfast when all of a sudden, it wasn鈥檛 a bang, it was sort of a muffled sound. It was an incendiary going off! Now we lived on a row of terraced houses, there was a passageway you used to go around to get into the back way, then there was the next house. Now this incendiary had lodged in the chimney stack. As the fire that mum had lit began to heat up, they assumed it had caused the incendiary to go off, or dislodge and explode. Mum went into the kitchen to be met with a wall of soot! She hadn鈥檛 got injured, just covered in soot. Incendiaries weren鈥檛 designed to cause damage with the explosion, just to create fires. This incendiary had blown the chimney stack off and it fell down into the passageway. Also, we used to have a canary; but it was a blackbird sitting there when we she in. It was totally covered in soot!

They immediately contacted the air raid warden, just at the bottom of Exchange Street there was a big air raid warden post. They came down examined it, explained possibly what it was, and cordoned off the passageway because there was still loose bricks that could have fallen.

Now we got out of bed immediately when we discovered what had happened. Mother had cleaned some of the soot off herself and came over to tell us that we would have to got to school from Grandma鈥檚, which was just over the way. The particular end of Exchange street where we lived, virtually everybody was related. I had both grandmas, 2 aunts 鈥� it was fairly common in those days. We went straight off to the tape and I can remember it to this day.

Well we were very lucky that it got lodged in the chimney because if it had gone off inside it would have burned the whole house down. When it went off on the roof we the incendiary chemicals didn鈥檛 ignite so we were very lucky again. I also remember how lucky it was to be going to grandma鈥檚 because she never seemed to be short of anything and she made the best porridge in the world!

The only damage was the chimney falling into the passage.

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