大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the site by the 大象传媒's Peoples War Team in the East Midlands with Beryl Bickerstaffes permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions"

On the night of May 8th/9th 1941 we were bombed out. The night started as usual with the sounding of the sirens in the ordinary way. Mum and I didn鈥檛 get up (the novelty of getting up in the middle of the night having worn off) but father had to get up due to his duties as Air Raid Warden. He was soon back insisting that we got up too as incendiary bombs were being dropped (the normal prelude to a heavy bombing raid). We got up, dressed, and went out. Neighbours were dashing hither and thither putting out incendiary bombs with both sandbags and using a stirrup pump for which others were dashing in and out of their houses filling buckets of water. Tony Burt and I put out two incendiary bombs working as a team 鈥� not bad for 12 years old. In one house an incendiary bomb had come through the roof straight into a bath full of water (people had been told to leave the bath full of water in case the water main was damaged). Then after a short lull, different planes came over and the high explosive bombs began to fall so people dashed for the nearest shelter.

Because their cellar was nearer we went to the house of the Congreaves next door together with Mr & Mrs Fowler and their daughter from just along the road. The latter family were supposed to go to the cave shelter but they felt they didn鈥檛 have time to get there, especially as one H.E had already hit one of the gasometers near the railway line which was burning very fiercely. So, in a reinforced cellar intended to accommodate one elderly lady and her son, there were three men, three women and two girls, to say nothing about the Alsatian dog. With the importation of extra seating from upstairs there were enough chairs for five so the rest of us sat on the cellar steps just where they bent round to get into the cellar proper. Planes were droning overhead, bombs were bursting, anti aircraft guns were going off 鈥� a considerable din. Then a bomb came into our street, we heard it screaming down and then a phenomenal explosion that one felt as well as heard. (I can still hear this sound when I think about the bombing). Those of us sitting on the cellar steps were hurled forward by the blast which had (we later discovered) torn down the Congreave鈥檚 front door which opened into a passage way and the cellar door which was immediately opposite before filing the whole area with rubble from the bombed house next door. Margaret Fowler and I had grazed knees and hands and Mr Fowler similar injuries and my mother was deafened by the blast. The dog was later diagnosed by the vet as having a ruptured stomach and was put down. I was very upset about this because we were good friends and I regularly took him for walks into Colwick Woods and round by the ruined windmill on Windmill Hill (now Geens Mill 鈥� a feature on the tourist trail of Nottingham).

We sorted ourselves out, Mr Congreave and Mr Fowler went as far up as the cellar steps as they could get to try to find out what the situation there was. It appeared that the cellar door was wedged on top of some shelves and the gas meter and appeared to be held there by a lot of rubble so it didn鈥檛 seem likely that we could easily get out that way. Fortunately there was a grating near the ceiling of the cellar just above pavement level so air was getting in but we became very worried when we could hear running water and were worried that we would be drowned but it later became apparent as day began to dawn that the water was running into the bomb crater.

After the All Clear sounded and we could hear people in the street, the men shouted through this grating and people came to help but the digging out of people trapped in bombed houses is very different because the moving of one thing can cause further falls so they decided not to tackle it themselves but to call out the ARP Officers who organised a trained squad who cleared the rubble above the cellar door and we were then able to get out.

It appeared that this was one of the stick bombs, one in St Stephens Churchyard, one in Lees Hill Street, two on the railway lines at the bottom of the cliff and the last one hit the Co-op Bakery on Meadow Lane, a lot of people were killed by this bomb. When a count up was made of people in my fathers area as Air Raid Warden, two people were missing, a lady and her daughter living next door but one to us and next door to the Congreaves. People from the cave shelter said that they had gone there and had asked permission to take their dog and had gone home to fetch it and no-one had seen them since. So the ARP officers were informed that there could be people buried underneath this house. They were dug out but it appeared that they had died instantly. The daughter鈥檚 husband was in the forces and I know that he was informed by appropriate officials of his wife鈥檚 death.

Whilst this was going on my cousin Dollys husband, Bill, who was in the auxiliary police came to see if we were alright. We all went into our house for the first time since getting up due to the raid to find that broken tombstones, soil and bones had come through the roof and were covering the furniture and floor of the attic room. We stayed there, gratefully accepting cups of tea from WRVS volunteers, whilst the ARP officials covered the roof with tarpaulin and boarded up the windows and father went to call on Father Patrick of St Stephens church to ask what he wanted done with the bones that were in our attic and should he organise a collection of them from others locally so that they could be reburied. This was done a week or so later and everyone went regardless of their religious belief.

Bill very kindly offered to put us up until the house could be made habitable again and this offer was gratefully accepted and we went to stay with my Auntie Gertie in the Oakdale Road area of the City. We were there some 4/5 weeks, my mother and aunt visiting the house daily to keep an eye on progress and to clean up (soot had come down all the chimneys to add to all the mess) which was quite a mammoth task. There are some odd things about bombed houses; pictures and mirrors were usually still hanging on walls exactly as they had been and even open fronted bookcases often had all their books intact.

Later when we managed to redecorate the house, we found quite large pieces of glass had been driven right into the plaster of the walls.

Whilst staying with my Aunt and family one morning when my mother pouring out tea for me the handle of the aluminium teapot came off and the teapot and contents went all down my left arm and leg. I was initially taken to the chemist on Carlton Road but he refused to look at it and recommended that I should go to hospital where I eventually had a skin graft onto my left arm. This was a relatively new technique then. Because there had to be a neck of skin left between the donor area and the receiving area until the graft took and because my left leg was scared, my left arm was taken round my back and strapped just below my waist. This became very painful and I suffered a lot of cramps until they could get the tongue of skin 鈥� then of course my back had to heal. When I went home again I found that of the four window panes we had three that were solid wood and only one of the top ones made of glass so the rooms were rather dark even on sunny days.

When our parents weren鈥檛 around, which was quite often especially in school holidays, Tony and I used to play in the rubble of the four bombed houses, finding shrapnel and other little wonders such as bits of crockery and glass etc. We built a wonderful den there with four walls, a door, seating and spy hole window. We also devised different routes about the site by bridging chasms with floor board planks and roof beams. During the summer of 1942 the site was cleared and our lovely play area gone.

Late one evening the neighbourhood was knocked up to 鈥渃ome and look鈥� we all went to the top of the cliff at the end of the road where we could see a very bright yellow, orange and red glow topped with black. Later we discovered that what we had seen was Coventry burning.

There was a large and active Home Guard in the Nottingham area which did other work than marching about waiting for the invasion. They officiated in the collection of unwanted iron ware and aluminium goods. They also protected bailed out Luftwaffe crew from local inhabitants and saw them safely into POW camps.

Everyone on reaching the age of seventeen and a half received call up papers. Some people were exempt either due to their employment, or the education they were undertaking or the state of their health.

Exempt occupations included :- railway men, miners, fishermen, ship pilots, policemen, firemen, ambulance men, nurses and doctors, munitions workers, certain civil servants on war work and, I am sure many others that I didn鈥檛 know about. If a boy or girl wished to go into a particular service it paid them to volunteer in advance and then they stood a pretty good chance of getting the one they wanted. In general boys from the seaside went into the Navy and other into the Army or the RAF. Many boys wished to go into the RAF and at my school there as an Air Training Corps for boys of 14 and over which was held after school and was involved in preliminary training. Boys who didn鈥檛 volunteer got sent into the army usually or became Bevin boys and were sent down the mines.

Boys of my age were too young for this call up as they didn鈥檛 reach call up age until the war was over but they did get called up for National Service for 2 years. Those who had been in the ATC usually got into the RAF. It may not have been fair but, during the war, men with a grammar school or other higher education were usually offered Officer Training. At Roys school, The Kings School, Macclesfield they had an OTC from which during the war people usually went into the Army.

Women could elect to go into one of the forces or the Land Army or Queen Alexandra鈥檚 Nursing corps. Many grammar school girls went into the RAF and became drivers or worked in Control towers moving model RAF planes or Bandits for those in charge to follow a battle or returning bombers.

Life at school wasn鈥檛 easy. We had sandbags up all outside walls and up onto the window sills. Chalk was often in short supply. Everything got steadily tattier and tattier especially in the laboratories 鈥� we had three labs for 1st for 5th years inclusive and three for 6th formers. All glass apparatus could only be replaced when supplies appeared. The same applied to art room stores, decent paper was in very short supply and oil paints became like gold. Ink was also difficult to obtain and we often wrote in green or violet. Library books became tatty too and so some art lessons were devoted to book binding.

About school 鈥� we had four streams A, B, C, and D. In general A was arts, B sciences, C undecided and D not really bright enough to get Matriculation or School certificate in London Exams. We all took northern university school certificates for our mocks in February which was considered easier than London so people who couldn鈥檛 pass the London one at least got something.

Maths and English were compulsory passes as was one modern language, plus two other subjects 鈥� this gave one basic certificate 鈥� unlike later certificates, all of these had to be taken at the same time. I was an arts student and took English language, literature, French, Latin, Mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, history, music art and ancient history. I sat 12 subjects and passed 10 and so got a rocket from my mother.

The D stream boys learned woodwork and metalwork and the girls learned cookery and needlework so in their class鈥檚 boy鈥檚 mended furniture and the girls would mend table cloths etc in needlework. The science students did two sorts of maths, the three standard sciences plus zoology.

After school activities, apart from the ATC, included choir, drama, tennis, dancing (ballroom), eurhythmics now called gymnastics and chess. I did choir, tennis, dancing and eurhythmics. We could only do three but as tennis occurred during the summer and dancing in the other two terms these counted as one.

In our first year we were not streamed but at the beginning of the year the decision was made as to which stream we would be in according to our interests, aptitudes and abilities.

At the same time we were bombed out, the Church we attended, St Christopher鈥檚 on Colwick Road was burned together with the Church Hall. Our vicar went as a padre in the RAF and the congregation joined that of St Philips. On that same night many factories were bombed 鈥� the Dunlop, parts of boots in town not in Beeston, several Lace Market factories and part of Raleigh Bicycles. It was said that, due to the fact that an area of Lincolnshire was partly lit like a city, Nottingham was bombed instead of Derby which was the original target. No one really knows.

When I was in hospital following the scalding and during the skin graft there were many people there who were bomb victims. The wards were crowded, each bed along the sides had only a locker between it and the next one and up in the middle of the ward there was a double row of beds with lockers beside each one. It was strange for me because I was in an adult ward but was really only a child. My mother did enquire why I was in an adult ward instead of in the Children鈥檚 Hospital, but that it appeared that the only specialist in skin grafting was based at the city hospital so that was why I was transferred there from the General A & E. In our ward there were some casualties from the WAAF and the ATS.

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