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Pauline Barnes nee Hindle
DOB: 20.09.35
War time age: 5 years

I was born in Clitheroe where we lived at 1 Grafton Street. My father Robert Hindle was an engineer making parts for Tanks, he was a planer and he worked in a factory in Blackburn. In those days it was very expensive to travel from Clitheroe to Blackburn and so we had to move to Blackburn so that he could be closer to work. He had a bad heart and so he couldn’t go into the Army. My mother was a cotton weaver.

I remember during the war having to hide under the stairs when the air raid siren went off and we had to stay there until we had the all clear.
Our house was located right next to the railway line and as I child I remember that I would sit on the wall in front of our house and watch the trains pass by. I used to write down their numbers. During the war all the train engine cabs had to be blacked out so that they couldn’t be spotted by the planes. The German planes were trying to locate the electricity works in Blackburn in order to bomb it. I remember one particular train was producing ‘sparks’ as it travelled along the line and although the cab was blacked a German plane was able to follow it because of the sparks. The plane dropped a bomb close to the electric works but it didn’t hit the works.
For years after that we played in the hole that had been made by the bomb. It often filled with water and we floated our boats on it.

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