大象传媒

I was eight when the war started and our school was taken over and used as an army barracks until the troops could be relocated to permanent camps.

On the night of 9-10 January, during a raid our school was hit. The bomb went through the roof, the first floor and exploded on the ground floor doing extensive damage. Fortunately the troops had just moved out so no one lost their life, but it meant we were again off school. Eventually it was arranged for us to go part time to another local school until ours had been made habitable. We eventually were able to return but could only use the upper floor. The ground floor was not repaired until after the war.

My school adopted a ship called the SS Beaverhill and we used to knit items of clothing for the sailors. We were given wool, needles and a pattern to take home and when an item was finished our name was pinned to it and it was sent out to the ship. We started knitting scarves and ballaclavas, mittens and seaboot stockings and were thrilled when we managed to progress to a seamans jersey. My mother used to help me to read the patterns. We used to receive letters from the sailors but eventually the school received information that the ship had been sunk on one of the Atlantic convoys. The news was distressing and though we were able to adopt another ship it was not the same.

We were living in Fallowfield, Manchester at the time of the 1940 Blitz but were visiting my grandparents who lived just outside. When the raid started my father decided we would stay the night but because there was seven of us and the house had only two bedrooms my Grandfather took some of us to stay with my Aunt who lived nearby. On the way we could hear the bombers overhead and the whistle of bombs as they dropped. My Grandfather pushed us into a ditch at the side of the road, thinking we were going to be hit. I found out later that he had been injured during the first war by shells.

After one raid two landmines were dropped and our house was damaged. It was structurally sound but most of the slates had been lost and nearly all the windows. We were in a shelter in the next road and when the raid was over and we returned home to find the front door open and a queue of people in the hall waiting to use our telephone. When everyone had gone my father found a pile of pennies next to the telephone which had been left to pay for the calls. My father never stopped telling people how honest everyone had been. Our only problem was for the next few months we had tarpaulin covering the roof and oiled fabric covering the windows until enough glass could be found to repair them.

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