大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from the Actiondesk on behalf of Beryl Carroll and has been added to the site with her permission. Beryl Carroll fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was 17 when the war broke out in September 1939. It was very quiet at first and they all said it would be over by Christmas. As there was very little social life, a few of us decided to join the Red Cross, where we had lectures in First Aid and Home Nursing. As I was in the Civil Service, I was in a reserved occupation, which meant I was not allowed to join any of the Armed Services. I was however called up for the local Fire Guard. We worked in teams of 3 girls, one had the hose nozzle, I had the stirrup pump and the third member was in charge of the water, on and off. We were never actually called upon to put out any fires.

At that time I lived in Salford, Lancashire, and the air raids started in 1940. The siren would frequently go in the early evening, and we would dash down to the Anderson Shelter, which was situated at the bottom of the garden.

There was a complete blackout so the enemy planes could not see the towns and cities. No street lamps, blackout curtains at the windows, the busses were allowed a small light to allow the driver to see. We were allowed a torch with a tiny pin-prick light.

In December 1940 the planes came over Manchester and Salford for three nights whilst the Blitz continued over in Liverpool. The Blitz was continual bombing all night long. On December 22 it was Manchester and Salford鈥檚 turn. I was setting off with a party to sing carols around the town when the air raid siren went. The Air Raid Warden directed us into a shelter underneath Hope Hospital in Salford where we remained all night. The hospital received a direct hit and the Matron was killed. Towards morning my friend and I persuaded to let us out of the shelter and we ran to her house amidst the falling shrapnel where we spent the rest of the night in the Morrison shelter under the dining room table. As they had no garden, they had to have a Morrison. We had another 2 nights of intense bombing. Our house did not have a direct hit, but was damaged. In order to try to prevent the enemy planes from bombing the towns, huge barrage balloons were inflated and floated in the air, however, the enemy would machine-gun them down and then swoop down to drop their bombs. Manchester and Salford were particularly vulnerable because of the Manchester Ship Canal, which guided the aircraft to the cities.

On the Monday, after the first night of the Blitz, we had to walk to work because there was no transport, and underfoot was crunching glass and rubble. We found the centre of Manchester flattened and the office inaccessible. The air raids continued until Christmas Eve, and so our Christmas Day was spent cleaning up. My father was an Air Raid Warden, so we always worried about him when we heard the bombs whistling down, as we spent night after night in the Anderson shelter.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.