大象传媒

(This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from Three Counties Action at Bedford VE/VJ's commemorations on behalf of Derek Jackson and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Jackson fully understands the site's terms and conditions).

I was born in 1940 in Bedford but when I was 3 weeks or 3 months old we moved to Mosside in Manchester. I have no idea why we moved there but my dad was originally from Lancashire.

My playground was the bomb sites of Mooside. We lived in 1 room. 3 times the houses we lived in were bombed and once I was outside in a pram. Dad wasn鈥檛 in the army because he had an illness so he and my mum worked at Dunlop the tyre people but they made things for the war.

The 1 room we lived in I slept in a wardrobe drawer, pretty much up until the age of 4. The coal was kept in the corner near where I slept and we played with coal treating it as bricks. My mum didn鈥檛 know this and came in once and I was covered in coal and was black from top to toe.

I can remember the bombs dropping and that鈥檚 probably why I can鈥檛 sleep well now because I can hear every little noise. When the sirens went off we were taken to air raid shelters. In the large shelters big band music was played. I can remember being terrified. One time when we were living in a room at the top of a house a German parachutist came through the room and I remember my dad knocking him out, I was terrified! Even now it makes me shake; I must have been about 5. What happened after that and to the parachutist I don鈥檛 know!

We lived for a while on the Manchester ship canal or on a house boat; it鈥檚 now where the Lowry centre is. Parts of it are still the same. I fell in the canal and I remember being pulled out by a large man and I couldn鈥檛 have been long after that - I can remember being in a house and coming down the stairs and him being dead on the floor. But that wasn鈥檛 unusual it happened a lot. It was such a poor area people just starved. I can remember being very hungry we had very little to eat as it was so hard to get food, to survive you had to get food from the dustbins. When my granddaughter says to me 鈥淚鈥檓 hungry granddad鈥� I say 鈥渘o you鈥檙e not you don鈥檛 know what hunger is鈥�.

At school once a girl came in with bandages on where her mother had burnt her with a red hot poker. Also at school I had a specialist seat at the front and the punishment was to sit next to Jackson, because I smelt of lifebuoy soap and had patches on my knees. To this day it still affects me. I have a problem with school authority but strangely I still like the smell of lifebuoy soap!

We played cricket and football on bomb site and inside the houses with walls falling down, if we hit the ball occasionally bits more would fall down but I can鈥檛 remember anyone getting hurt. A friend of mine once fell through the floor - straight down - but was unhurt.

It was a painful and hard childhood but we survived. Even now I don鈥檛 like fire or the smell of burnt wood and debris because it reminds me too much of the bomb sites and the bombs that dropped and destroyed so much.

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