大象传媒

This is one of the stories collected on the 25th October 2003 at the CSV's Make a Difference Day held at 大象传媒 Manchester. The story was typed and entered on to the site by a CSV volunteer with kind permission of Roy Grayham .

Roy Grayham

Starting in 1939 all was pretty quiet I was living in Withington, my first recognition was being evacuated in 1940, when we were sent to Blackpool, Boothley Road, and there were about 40 of us who went.

I was billeted with a Mrs Dixon, and my pal Raymond Brown, went next door to Mrs Busby he was at No 62 I was at No 60.

Mrs Busby had a budgie, called dinky and we laughed at it being called Dinky Busby. I went to school at Devonshire Road School in Blackpool. I remained there for 6 months, but became home sick and my mother brought me home to Withington. It was then that I realised that there was a War on. We all had Anderson Shelters in the gardens. We were all given gas masks. The shelters we never really went in because they were very cold and damp. Our neighbours would call for me and my mother during an air raid and we went into their house. I remember the nights of the Manchester blitz I could see the sky lit up with a bright orange glow and there were flares coming down over the city. The nearest we came to being bombed was when a German aircraft release a stick of bombs over Withington and they landed along the avenue where I lived a one hit my school Old Moat School. The last bomb that fell on that night was an unexploded bomb it landed in Melthem Avenue and I remember the bomb disposal solders digging it out. I used to collect shrapnel which was results of our guns firing at the enemy planes I had quite a bucket full including some of the nose cap which were made out of brass; I also managed to get part of the fins of the bomb which landed on Rudheath Avenue opposite No46 which is where I lived. I remember seeing the remains of incensory bombs which landed on the playing fields of the girls grammar school on princess road and me and my pal went there one day and we dug the remains of them out of the soil, I remember the fins were just on top of the grass and the part which caused the fire was buried in the soil we dug them out a couple of them they were about the size in diameter of a glass milk bottle and there was about 3 inches left. We took them home and we throwing them up and down the avenue to each other and when they hit the concrete road they would ignite with a sharp bang. A Policeman who lived near by Constable Appleby came out and confiscated them.

Things were getting pretty bad with the bombings so my mother decided to evacuate me again she sent me to Sommerfold Hall Camp Congleton I arrived there with my friend Alfie Webster on a Saturday lunchtime and I remember seeing all these lads gardening I think it was dig for victory campaigns which they had all the boys doing while they were there when I arrived I went into a large dinning area I remember there were long tables set out for lunch and on all the tables there were plates of jam set out it must have been August I think because there were a lot of Wasps on the jam plates we had only just arrived and I remember one of the teachers saying to us that there had been some keys missing and if they were not found then there would be no visitors on the Sunday this upset me and I said to Alfie Webster have you any money he said yes I鈥檝e got half a crown and I asked him to give to me so that I could come home on the bus. I got the bus and came home to Manchester when I got to Withington my home my mother was out I think see was at work so I went round to Alfie Webster鈥檚 house when Mrs Webster saw me she nearly had a fit she said where鈥檚 Alfie I said he was still at Sommerfod Hall Camp and that he lent me half a crown to come home because I didn鈥檛 like it from that day form I never went away again. I remember joining the Army cadets and we used to parade on the playground of our school Old Moat, we would go to Wythenshawe Park to do manoeuvres on Sundays we had rifle but the firing pins were removed so we didn鈥檛 shoot anyone.

I remember one night a land mine dropped on the corner of Princess Road and Mauldeth Road Withington right across from the Princess hotel on the corner of Britons fields; I managed to get some of the ropes of the parachute that it came down on and kept them in my bucket with my shrapnel.

At weekends after school we sometimes went camping to Hayfield in Derbyshire, there were three of us Ken Nixon, Raymond Bale and myself we used to catch the train at west Didsbury station and go to new mills and then change to get to Hayfield. We were at Hayfield this particular time and we noticed that there were a large clock tower in the village there was a little door at the bottom and we went in, I climbed to the top and could see all the workings of the clock it had a pile of penny鈥檚 to balance the works, I took the penny鈥檚 and we bought some fish and chips, when we came to get the train on the Sunday afternoon back to new mills we were told that we had missed the train which would take us back to west Didsbury the station master told us that the next train for us would only go to Romelly so we got on board and when we got to Romelly we had to walk back to Withington I remember when we were walking home we passed a park near Stockport, there were lots of flowers, I think I must have been thinking of the belting I was going to get when I got home, because I picked a bunch of flowers to take home, it was three o鈥檆lock in morning when we arrived all our parents were looking for us with the police they were relieved seeing us so we escaped we a good telling off.

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