大象传媒

In 1940 I lived on Wolseley Road. On the evening of 12th December I went with my parents and brother to a concert at the Montgomery Hall in the centre of Sheffield. My father was in the Home Guard and this show was given for them. Mother didn't want to go as the night before she had listened to William Joyce (Lord Haw Haw) who broadcast propaganda from Germany, he said the Luftwaffe were coming to bomb the steel works in Sheffield and for the first time since the war started the trams were to be lit and the German bombers would follow the lights from the trams down the Moor, High Street and on to the factories in the East End.
We arrived at the hall at 6.50 and the sirens sounded at 7.03. The show carried on with the performer saying a monologue about the Devil. During his performance the bombs were falling around us and the guns sounded worse overhead. Eventualy the lights went out and at the same time the entertainer ended by crashing down on the stage feigning death. By now everyone was heading, in the dark, to the doorways and some decided to leave, only to be stopped as it was very dangerous.
We were taken down to a lower hall but just as we entered, the windows blew in and a lot of people were cut with flying glass. We then went down to an L shaped cellar with old wooded chairs placed around the walls the men had to sit on the steps owing to lack of space. They took turns to go outdoors to see if they could be of any help. I remember being upset each time my father went out. One bomb landed inbetween the Town Hall and the Montgomery Hall, the whole builing shook, plaster and lime showered upon us, all the pipes round the ceiling rattled and this huge disturbance caused a few mice to appear from the cracks which in turn frightened the women who started to scream and jump on chairs, then my mother fainted. We all laughed afterwards as it seemed the ladies were more afraid of the mice than the bombs.
At one end of the cellar was a small room where the central heating boilers were, they made lots of bubbling noises throughout the night, Mother thought we would all get drowned. Finally we were allowed to leave the shelter, we were lucky to be alive but still had to make our way home through rubble, glass and goods from shop windows which were strewn everywhere. It was impossible to walk the short way home because the whole of the Moor seemed to be ablaze, shops and trams were burning and the sky was bright red my father led us home with lots of detours around the town. On the way home a young lady who was in a distressed state asked if she could walk with us as she lived in our direction.
We saw a few bodies covered in white sheets, it was impossible for our parents to shelter us from these awfull scenes of war. Mother was very anxious to return home and as we passed our school my brother cheered because the bell tower had had a direct hit.
On reaching home all the neighbours came out to greet us, they never thought we could have survived such a night in town. One of the neighbours took the young lady home and the rest of us piled into our little house which didn't even have a broken window. Within the hour our relations began to arrive, my mother's three sisters (Their husbands were serving in the forces) with their children followed by my father's family. One aunt arrived with my two cousins The three of them wore coats over their night wear and my aunt held a small case in one hand and a budgerigar in a cage in the other, a time bomb had landed near to their home and they stayed with us until it was safe to go back.
Now, Sheffield's ordeal was not quite over - two nights later the Luftwaffe came again to the factories in the east of Sheffield. We listened very quietly as the heavily laden bombers passed overhead. We were glad to be at home in our own shelter.

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