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This story was submitted to the People's War website by Julia Shuvalova for GMR Actiondesk on behalf of Joyce Hilton and has been added with her permission. The author is fully aware of the terms and conditions of the site.

CHAPTER 5 - Unexpected Visitors

Gran's relations paid us visits during our time at Lord Nelson Street. Her sister Mary had emigrated to Jersey from Dublin many years ago and, days before the German occupation, she and her daughter-in-law and two grandchildren were put on the last boat leaving the island. Aunty Mary and family stayed in Derby for the duration and came to Salford to see us. It was so embarrassing; our house was such a poor place, even though it was clean and tidy. The plaster was coming off one wall through a torn piece of wallpaper and we had cockroaches.

The bedrooms were ghastly. One had its walls painted in royal blue distemper (a type of powdery emulsion paint), the other one an equally awful shade of cerise. Mum used to joke whenever we had visitors to stay (and we still did frequently), "Shall we put them in the blue room or the pink room?" as if it were Windsor Castle. We had bare boards in the bedrooms making cleaning very hard and on wet days we had to catch drips coming through the ceiling. What could we do? Everything was rationed or unavailable with no money to spare. It was Hobson's Choice - no choice at all.

We had an unexpected visit from Pat, our handsome Irish American Cousin. He was the son of Gran's other sister Annie from Akron Ohio and was an officer in the American Navy. One day out of the blue he turned up at Gran's house, accompanied by a fellow male officer and a W.A.V.E., a lady officer, their ship having just come into Manchester docks. They looked like film stars, wearing spotless white uniforms with bronzed skin.

Poor Gran! She led a simple life and was overwhelmed by the visitors and rushed across the street to us. I was at the easily embarrassed age, but they were very easy to get on with and so pleased to see us. It was a lovely visit and we had plenty to talk about. The W.A.V.E. was very glamorous and I was asking her about make-up which was beginning to interest me. So, thanks to Hitler we got to meet our long-lost relative from across the Atlantic.

By now, of course, we had been "invaded" by the 'Yanks'. They came to Burtonwood, near Warrington and Manchester Docks. Cross Lane in Salford was close to the docks and a magnet to them, with its three cinemas and dozens of pubs. It was thronged on Saturday nights although it's hard to imagine what it was like when you see today's soulless redevelopment. We had stood alone until 1941, but once involved in the conflict the Americans had thrown everything into it. We really owed them a great deal, not least of which was the introduction of Spam! It was Spam with everything and we were grateful for it. Norma also got a pretty dress through the American Red Cross which she loved.

It was now early 1944 and we hadn't had a serious raid in the North West since 1942. London, however, was still suffering terribly and was now being attacked by the V.I. ‘doodlebugs'. We were glued to the radio news bulletins for news of the war. It seemed to be going on forever and Norma and I really needed a break away from the city. Dad's sister Mary and her Irish friend (also Mary) took us to Silverdale (on Morecambe Bay). We stayed there with a lady called Mrs Brownsword who wore her hair in a long plait right down her back. It was a lovely area, so peaceful, and the food was great. Country people obviously had easier access to good food and weren't as deprived as us city folk. In fact in many ways the war didn't really touch the country. I remember going to a film show in Silverdale, it was in a large hut with a corrugated roof and we sat on long benches. A real treat.

By this time all of the evacuated family had returned home including Uncle Harold. I remember seeing him off at the beginning of the war at Cross Lane Station, standing on the busy platform with my Gran and my Mother waving him off. He was working now in Salford and also glad to be back amongst family. Some of the family, however, were still in Europe in the thick of the fighting. Uncle Stan was stationed in Holland and I wrote to him regularly giving him all our news. He still has the letters. He wrote back often and in one letter I remember him mentioning a new singer he had heard on the American Forces Network, a young man called Perry Como. On one occasion, when he came home on leave, Stan bought me a lovely bottle of perfume, a real luxury.

I had a new friend who lived next door but one, Margaret Ogden. Her parents, Aunty and Uncle and her Grandma were all friends of my Gran and Mum and Dad. We spent a lot of time in each other's houses. Nearly every Sunday we walked to Buille Hill Park Museum. It was a nice walk that took us past some beautiful houses, which at the time seemed part of another world. Happily, soon after the war, we were able to move to this area ourselves and, for the first time, to have our own garden. Dad even kept a few hens, keeping us supplied with lovely fresh eggs.

We went to the cinema as often as we could to escape the dreariness and austerity of wartime. The American glamour movies had hit our screens. Musicals with stars like Betty Grable and Harry James provided an escapism, a world so colourful and so far removed from our drab lives. In the intervals they showed Pathe News and the other newsreels showing the latest from the war, the only moving images of the war that we saw. The feature films ran continuously and we often stayed in the cinema at the end of the film to watch some of it again. When we got home, we would often make chips and cocoa and listen to a good play on the radio. Margaret and I both had long hair (I don't remember having mine cut for years), partly imitating the styles from the cinema screen. Another style I adopted was a style called the 'victory roll' that the A.T.S. and W.A.A.F. wore coiled round a stocking.

One day Mum had a tea leaf reading at our house and invited friends. The lady was remarkable. She said we would own a house on a hill, which came true, and that a child would be bitten by a dog; that came true. Norma was drying her hair in the back yard on a sunny Sunday, when a dog got in and jumped up and bit her under one eye. She was very lucky not to lose her sight. Mum took her to the hospital, but she was all right.

Since we had got back to Lord Nelson Street in Salford we had got a dog, a beautiful collie bitch called Trixie. In 1944 she had a litter of pups, seven of them wriggling about with their eyes shut and then eventually stumbling around getting under everyone's feet. She was a very good-natured dog and a good mother. Mum found homes for them all. She had a further litter of seven (a lucky number for her obviously) in our next home in Edward Avenue. In those days it seems that there were no rules about dogs, they just seemed free to roam about without leads. Of course there were fewer cars and it was less of a problem than it would be today.

As I said earlier, all had been pretty quiet on the North Western front since 1942 but then the Germans gave us a reminder that the war was still on. It was Christmas Eve 1944 and we were all prepared for a jolly Christmas day when Manchester had a V.I. attack. The following account is taken from the Manchester Evening News V.E. day Souvenir:

‘Between 5am and 6am 45 Heinkels launched their Christmas Eve attack. It was a last ditch campaign. The Nazis tried to panic the north of England where no doodle bugs had been seen. The first landed at Brindle near Chorley . Others, 30 in all, were scattered widely across the North of England. Lancashire had eight. One at Worsley, where a small boy was killed. Some of the missiles carried printed letters from wounded prisoners whose homes were in the Manchester area and were scattered around Oldham. They were handed to the police. They implied the prisoners were receiving good treatment, and that the Germans were really very nice people. It was an ingenious ploy to get relatives to write disclosing where the V.I.s had fallen.’

While the end of the war was in sight, rationing was far from over. By this time we had been subject to dried snoek (a type of large pike-like fish) and horsemeat, which apparently we were eating but hadn't realised it, and dried egg which I loved when fried like a pancake. Fortunately for us we had a nice shop next door run by a pleasant couple, Mr and Mrs Short. Mum had worked in that shop as a young girl, living in, making more room for her brothers in the little two up and two down house where Gran lived. How Gran coped there all her married life I don't know as she had five sons and a daughter there. I never heard her complain, ever, other than about Granddad and that was always done with a sense of fun. She had a wonderful sense of humour and often had us in hysterics.

It wasn't easy maintaining a healthy diet, especially for growing kids, but somehow we managed. We had advice on the radio from the Ministry of Food and the 'Radio Doctor'. We didn't seem to go to the doctors much at all, probably because it cost money. There was no N.H.S. in those days. Norma had had mumps in 1943 and I caught it too. She slept on the couch in front of the fire for a week. Mum was very worried and the doctor came. I recall my Mum saying that the visit didn't cost much. I don't think there were many wealthy doctors and dentists in those days although I remember having a tooth out when we were at Birkdale and it cost 6d, quite a bit in those days.

By this time I was missing going out to work and so I got a job on a switchboard in Manchester. Mum understood and gave up her job at Ford Aircraft where she had been a Stores Clerk. The money had been good, but she had to catch two buses to get there and she had to start very early. It was all very tiring, especially in the winter, considering that she also had to look after us two girls. Working in Manchester I was able to start going for lunch at the British Restaurant, near Moseley Street, where workers could get a good meal and a pudding for about 1/- (5p), which was very good. I was earning about 25/- (£1.25) and at least keeping myself.

Luckily Dad was getting home more often, and often hitched lifts in a plane. I thought he looked very handsome in his airforce uniform, now that of an acting sergeant. He came home from Ireland once in an old Lysander. He said you could see through the floorboards and he had to wear a parachute! That was probably the most dangerous part of his life at that late stage in the war. Thankfully the war was now coming to a close as the German army was finally pushed back into the heart of Germany and the allies entered Berlin. It had seemed an eternity.

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