大象传媒

This story was added to the People's War website by a volunteer from Radio Newcastle on behalf of Mr K Oates. Mr Oates fully understands the terms and conditions of the website, and the story has been added to the site with his permission.

I was 13 when war was declared and lived with my parents and brothers in Ennerdale near Walkerdene backing onto the field. A few days after a unit of anti-aircraft arrived on the field with 4 X 2.7 AA guns. That evening an officer knocked on our doors, he wanted beds for his men until their huts arrived and had authority to commandeer some, so my single bed was occupied by the soldiers for a couple of weeks. At the end of our road on Waverdale Avenue a barrage balloon was erected (and later in the war a row of smoke screen cans all the length of our pavement (belching out black diesel smoke when ignited).

I was evacuated to Carlisle being a pupil "4th year" at the local grammar school. We all stood on the streeet where we were billeted and the local wives picked out the boys they wouls take. Education was negligable as we were put in an infants classroom -trying to sit was uncomfortable. However, we spend most of our time filling sandbags on the ground in front of a church next to Carr's biscuit factory. Father, when he visted, wasn't pleased and he brought me home. The schools were still mainly closed, just opening for a couple of hours on various days (most teachers had been called up to the services). I got a job with the local coop and as the air training corps (ATC) was being formed form the Air Defence Cadets, I joined, being keen to fly. So I studied hard at aircraft studies, morse code and navigation, stars, clouds etc including aircraft recognition. And whenever I heard an aircraft overhead I would try and slip out of the shop to identify it. One warm sunny afternoon late summer, lots of fluffy cumulous clouds 0 I heard one so I went out. It was flying from the coast over the railway by Walkergate Station, then I saw it more clearly and identified it as a German Dorier Twin Engined Bomber (there had been no air-raid sirens). He dropped his bombs on the forth goods station, turned south east into the clouds and away!

Later in the war there was more intense bombing. Anti-aircraft shrapnel pieces in lots of rooves and on roads, etc. A slick of bombs took out a house on each of the rows on our estate, the last one landing on a house about 6-8 away (it was owned by a friend of my father's - they went over to work at hebburn on the ferry only). They were safe in their Anderson shelter but spent the rest of the night with us (I slept in the back with my brother). Around that time after a night of incendinary bombs I found an unexploded one down our garden near the shelter. The next day I carried it up to Headlam Street Police Station, put it on the counter; the constable that looked at it dashed into the back and didn't return. I hung around for a while then just walked home. My father was office manager at Hawthorne Lesley's ship yard at Hebburn and when the Kelly limped in after being quite severely damaged in action my father took me over one Sunday morning to see her (being loaded onto Lord Louis Mountbatten's ship).

When I was old enough (about 17 and a half) I volunteered into the RAF as an air craft cadet.

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