大象传媒

As a child I lived on a Council estate in Bridlington and, the alleyway between the houses was blocked up and used as air-raid shelters. There were several shelters built locally, Little Beck Road, at the end of Baptist place, on South Back Lane and Brook land Road.
We never used any of them; Dad said we were just as safe at home.

Bridlington was one of the first places to be bombed, before hull, we were raided very early in the war.

Many evacuees came from Middlesbrough to Bridlington and some went to our school, Burlington School. The evacuees and their teachers, who came with them from Middlesbrough, went in the mornings, and then in the afternoons, we went with our teachers. The whole of the front of the school had sandbags piled up to protect the school if we were bombed.

A lot of people in Bridlington, leaving their homes with the curtains up, hoping that it would be assumed they were occupied. However, the empty houses were requisitioned and troops were billeted in them. Lots of troops lived in tents on Fond brig Lane (now Woldgate). There were many nationalities and they were billeted all over the town.

Polish troops were billeted in the yard of the star Inn near where we lived. They did not speak English but spoke to us in signs and mime. One wanted to sew a button on his shirt, and I rushed home and told my sister. She found some khaki thread and wound some on a scrap of a newspaper and put a needle through the paper. I ran back with it, and he was so pleased. Much to my amusement, he carved me a thick slice of ham and wrapped it in some brown paper he tore off a sack. He also gave me prunes in a scrap of paper. I was so thrilled I ran home and we ate well that night on ham and egg pie (made with dried egg).

Transcribed by Eric Kakore

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