大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Elizabeth Perez of Stockport Libraries on behalf of Lew Grepp and has been added to the site with his permission. He fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

"I lived on Ladybridge Road, near the little church and "The Greyhound and the Cross Keys". I was a child during the war, about 8 when it started. I attended the Johnathan Robinson School on Church Road, Cheadle Hulme. I went by bus, 2 pence return. After 2-3 years I moved to the All Saints School over the road.

I remember a teacher, MIss Bennison, and her mother being killed, in about 1941 by a bomb, a direct hit on their house on Stockport Road, Cheadle near Boundary Bridge.

My friends and I collected shrapnel, some pieces were quite big and you could cut your fingers handling them.

We had an evacuee posted with us, but she only stayed for half an hour. There were two sisters who didn't want to be parted. The sister given to us was hysterical, so they were taken elsewhere. There were quite a lot of evacuees in the area, some stayed until the end of the war. Most came from the Manchester area, but I remember one lad from Alderney (Channel Islands), who stayed with a friend of mine on Mellor Road. It must have been very traumatic for the evacuees.

My father was a bricklayer and worked for Jacksons Brickworks. He used to travel around all their works in the Manchester area. He was the local air raid warden. His area covered from "The Greyhound" down Birdhall Road, as far as about Chatsworth Road. We had to make sure everyone had their gas-masks. I was struck by the difference in the people we went to visit to check their masks, some invited us in for a cup of tea, others were not friendly. We had a sign near the front door "S.P." - this meant we could be called on for a stirrup pump for our part of the road.

I remember the schools' air raid shelters, and also ours at home which my father built. It was so well built it would have defied most bombs! The shelters at school were half dug into the ground, it had a strange smell. The school's shelters were on Church Road next to the Johnathan Robinson School. We had to supply our iron rations - a small tin with a few biscuits in it. We had often eaten our rations before going into the shelters! Of course we always had to take our gas-masks to school. We were sent home if we hadn't got it!

Some of our lessons were taken in the church - shortage of accommodation with all the extra children in the area due to evacuation.

The nearest bombs I remember were the two time bombs on Cuncillor Lane, and the time bomb at Abney Hall, which was removed and taken into the grounds to be detonated. This was quite lucky because I think that it would have flattened most of the hall if it had gone off. I seem to remember being told the bomb had landed in the Billiard Hall.

During the war, the buses produced an evil smell. Because petrol was so short they ran them on this gas. Some buses had trailers, others had like a balloon on the roof with the gas in. The smell was awful! Some had like little stoves and the conductor had to keep the fire burning. Not all buses were run in this way, only some to eke out the petrol supply. Smells can sometimes evoke memories."

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