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Fragments remembered.
Towards the end of the war as night fell the trains began. Always going South. Hauled by steam engines flat trucks with tanks part shrouded in tarpaulin but with guns protruding, field guns and other things hidden in swathes of tarpaulin.
The engine would be entering Ilkeston Junction as the Guard`s Van came out of Shipley Boat Station. I did not know then that these were armaments for D-Day.(The photo shows the kind of train behind a steam locomotive - here passing Bennerley signal box on its way North).
When we went for a Sunday afternoon walk through Shipley Woods I saw wire hawsers secured to trees and right across the Reservoir to trees on the other bank. I was told these were to foil German landing by seaplanes. Nutbrook Pit Tip was always on fire and rows and rows of pipes had been fixed all over it and water pumped like great squirting jets, from the old Nutbrook Canal. This was to prevent German planes using the place as a location point. At Stanton Ironworks everyones’ heart was in their mouth when the blast furnaces had to be tapped at night. Bomb cases were cast there so it was a favourite bombing target.
Above the town gasworks a huge squishy barrage balloon waffled about in the wind.

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