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This story has been added to the People’s War website by Anne Wareing of the Lancs. Home Guard on behalf of Gordon Roscoe, the story is in his own words…

The period from the start of the war to September 1941does not hold a lot of vivid memories for me, but in 1941 things changed. I lived in Walkden and had won a place to Farnworth Grammar School and started there then.

It was an unfortunate time to be going to a grammar school because of the war. All extra curricular activity had to cease. Everyone had to leave at 3.30pm in case of air raids. All the school windows were either boarded or sand bagged over. It might have proved to be a bit over the top, but at this stage nobody knew. Everything had to be treated as if Hitler was already marching through Manchester. Every direction sign was removed, not only telling you which road to take between towns, but also indicating where the Post Office, Library or Town Hall etc. could be found. Even the location of local toilets was obliterated and us lads had vivid imaginations of loads of German soldiers roaming round the middle of Walkden desperately clutching their downstairs plumbing with agonizing looks on their faces.

Every window where there was the slightest chance of a light showing had to be blacked out. You can imagine the multi various types of dark materials which were brought into play for this purpose. Old coats were opened up into squares and hung at windows. In places where the buildings were only used at night like churches, they even painted the glass of the windows with black paint.

There weren’t too many cars about in those days, but what there were had a special louvered shield clamped over the front of their headlights to make them shine onto the road, but couldn’t be seen from above. The curtain shops did a roaring trade in special blackout material, which was a dark navy blue.

The police had quite a job knocking on doors to tell the occupants they had a light showing. The bobby on the beat was still the strong arm of the law. Dixon of Dock Green was a pretty accurate description of police activity in the forties.

Of course, as always happens when difficult and strange situations occur, the Lancashire humour arises through any adversity and produces laughs. I remember one story of the bobby walking down a row of terraced houses at night. Like many of the houses they were that old that the doorsteps were worn, so they had quite a dip in the middle. This allowed light to shine under the door and this bobby saw a light and knocked on the door and shouted. ‘You’ve got a light shining under your door, Germans could see it a mile off.’ To which came the reply. ‘Why, they’re not coming on their hands and knees — are they?’

There was only three occasions in my memory when the Germans bombed Walkden. On all occasions it was certain they didn’t do it intentionally. Their navigation had gone a little askew and they thought they were bombing Salford or Manchester where the bombing was intense and relentless, with many buildings destroyed and many people killed. As for Walkden, one bomb dropped in a field and did little damage except for a few broken windows in houses nearby in Newearth Rd. On another occasion a bomb dropped near Sandhole Colliery, but not near enough to do any damage.

The third occasion was a bit more poignant. Sometimes the Germans would drop incendiary bombs instead of the large explosive ones. An incendiary bomb was about eighteen inches long and about two inches diameter. The front end was blunt except for a pin protruding out at the front and the rear end had fins, so that it fell in a straight- up position. As soon as it struck it burst into a vivid white phosphorous looking intense flame, which, of course soon set alight any building it landed on.

This particular night the Germans had got it all wrong and dropped about twenty of these bombs along the backs of our gardens in St. Georges Crescent. Immediately several of the men dashed out, somewhat rather pleased to, at last, be actively involved in the war. Most of them had been trained for a few hours in what to do in the event of an air raid. They were what was known as ARP wardens (air raid protection, I think). My father was one of these and together with some of our neighbours, quickly donned his tin hat and gas mask, ran out and picked up a full bucket (painted red) of sand, which was there for the purpose and started running towards the bombs. Unfortunately he wore quite strong spectacles, without which he couldn’t see a thing. These somehow got tangled up with the strap of his tin hat, resulting in dislodging his spectacles and he finished up landing head over heels in the middle of his favourite rosebushes. This of course rendered him out of action for the rest of the incident. I can’t remember the sequel to the incendiary bomb, saga, but can only assume that his friends put the fires out and that was the end of the bombing in Walkden.

Recalling the incident reminds me that the Coalition Government put out, from time to time, posters, which were pasted onto public notice boards and walls. They were intended to give brief advise on how the war could affect us locally and to spur us in to action to help the war effort and others helped to boost morale. The incendiary bomb incident reminds me of one which declared. IF AN INCENDIARY BOMB DROPS, DON’T LOSE YOUR HEAD, PUT IT IN A BUCKET AND COVER IT WITH SAND.

Others implored us to help the war effort by growing our own food. DIG FOR VICTORY was a very common slogan. Others were imploring us not to accidentally give away any information, which may be helpful to the enemy. The advice was BE LIKE DAD, KEEP MUM. There were of course many more posters and they helped to keep us going.

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