大象传媒

My mother, who was fifteen in 1939, recalls these memories 'her war'.

As soon as war was declared my school, Belle Vue High School for Girls, was closed and occupied by the army. With rationing everything was scarce. If I wanted a cup of tea I had to resort to subterfuge. I would ask my father if he would like some tea, and if he said yes then made it and I had some. If father said no I didn't get any either. Bradford was bombed once and that was a great shock. My uncle was in the city at the time, and when the all-clear was sounded he boarded a tram on Tyrell Street for home. An air-raid warden came on the tram and asked him to get off as there was an unexploded bomb in front of the tram.

During the war I did a full time job as cost clerk at English Electric in Bradford, where we helped to produce Churchill tanks. We were very thrilled to have a visit from Mr Churchill and his wife. A great clean-up in the works was ordered before the visit. It was such a wonderful day for us all.

In my spare time I was a W.A.P.C. (Woman Auxiliary Police Constable) at Eccleshill Police Station. The police headquarters in Bradford were (in comparison to today) in a small area of Bradford Town Hall.
As a police woman at Eccleshill Police Station (which was a small room, part of the Inspector's house) I just answered the phone, and sent messages out to the policemen on the beat. In those days there were police boxes on the street, they were like telephone boxes but bigger, blue, but no large glass windows. The one at Eccleshill was at the end of Fagley Lane. When I had a message for the policeman I rang the box, and a blue light lit on top of the box and flashed until the policeman answered. There were quite a few messages to say that German prisoners had escaped from their camp. One time I got a message from Leeds that a man had stolen a car and was heading for Bradford. Eccleshill is one way to come to Bradford from Leeds, so I got the message to the policeman on the beat. It happened that the Inspector was checking up on him at the time. I was waiting all agog to hear what had happened. I imagined the policeman stopping the car and arresting the man, and bringing him to the station. Eventually they came back to the station. "What happened about the stolen car?", I said. "Oh", said the Inspector, "we saw it pass and rang the next station. He will run out of petrol some time!"

I was in the Red Cross and did training as a nurse, and did duty where and when I was told. I remember whilst working with the Red Cross I was called to Queensbury. The place was a school built just before the war, but not used by children. It was occupied by an Army Highland Regiment first. They moved out and now it housed about 12 old people from London. I understand they had been brought straight from London after an air raid which demolished their dwellings.

Bradford was filled with air force personnel during the war. They trained in the then Technical College (now Bradford University). One of the trainers was Dr Maurice Woodhead, who had been a chemistry teacher at Hanson High School, who died in 2001. It was good for us young women as we always had dancing partners at the New Victoria ballroom.

Just after the war as a civil servant I was given the chance to go farming. We got our usual pay and worked on the farm for nothing. We went to Alne, near York. On the farm were 2 German prisoners working. The farmer made it clear that the German prisoners were good workers and we fitted in with them. If not we go back to the hostel. One girl went back. However, I got on well with one of them who was a young man. I never had any conversation with him, but he did most of my work for me. We were planting potatoes and there was a cart full of potatoes where we filled our bags. We then walked up the filed and as we stepped we dropped a potato in front of our foot. The young German prisoner came along at the side of me planting. he would pause and sometimes sing to me, then off to the end of the field. He would then come down my line and meet me in the middle, having done half my line.

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