大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Northumberland on behalf of Mr. David Wilson. Mr. Wilson fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions, and the story has been added to the site with his permission. It is written in the first person.

On the night of 26 April 1941 the German Luftwaffe carried out one of many raids over Tyneside. I lived in the colliery village of Shiremoor, which was in Northumberland long before the term North Tyneside was invented. Having been born in January 1934, I was seven years old. We always knew when a raid was imminent because one of the big L.N.E.R. (London and North Eastern Railways) locomotives used to steam up the railway line and over the Blue Bell crossing, pulling a heavy anti-aircraft gun on a railway wagon, before the air raid warning sirens sounded.

On that particular night my Mother and I were staying with my Grandparents at 4 Percy Street, which was quite close to the 鈥淏lue Bell鈥� pub and railway crossing. All of us had gone into the Anderson shelter in the front garden where we sat on the bunks. The raid was noisy from the start with the railway gun and the anti-aircraft battery at Benton pounding away at the German bombers. Things soon 鈥渉otted up鈥� and the din grew louder as we heard bombs falling, one after the other, until we heard an ear-piercing whistle and my Grandfather, quite calmly and in his broad Northumbrian pitman鈥檚 accent said, 鈥淎ye, this 鈥檔鈥檚 wors鈥�. I put my fingers in my ears just as there was a tremendous explosion. The shelter seemed to rise up, rock a couple of times and settle down again. When the 鈥淎ll Clear鈥� went, my Mother was first out of the shelter, to inspect the damage.

We had been lucky. All of the window glass had been blown out in the top half of Percy Street. The bomb had landed across the main road, which was at the bottom of our garden, on Coopers Green, beside the railway line and the War Memorial. There was a public shelter there and, unfortunately, some people were killed. The soft yellow glow of the gas mantle revealed that our front room floor and furniture was covered with soot and broken glass but, again we had been lucky, there was no major damage.

During the next few days it was realised that there had been eight bombs dropped in a straggling line across Shiremoor: One demolished a house at the top of Grange Avenue; Another house was destroyed on Park Lane; One landed on Louisa Street where Mrs. Charlton and her young son, Eric, were killed and her daughter, Marion, was blown clear, landing two gardens away, fortunately without a scratch; Another hit Duchess Street; The next one was near us on Coopers Green; And, the last one fell in a field near the railway bridge at Palmersville where the crater remained for years and made a large pond when it filled up with rain.

The question was asked, 鈥淲hy did the Germans bother to bomb Shiremoor?鈥� On reflection, perhaps from the air the four colliery streets, the brick factory, the Blue Bell Colliery (then disused), the railway lines and nearby Backworth Collieries, all may have given the impression of an industrial complex to the German bomb aimers. Or, maybe, they were just bad shots! Anyway, there was plenty of shrapnel for us kids to collect on the way to Holystone School the next morning.

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