大象传媒

Born on the 10th of August, 1941, in Edge Lane, Droylesden, Manchester. The memories of the next four years are still vivid today. The content of those memories were reolised slowly as I grew up and were not complete for many years. The images of being in a dark place watching what I came to reolise were other people moving around, speaking to each other; reacting to each other only became reality once I learned about the world around me. Being just a baby, I had absorbed the events unfolding around me whilst not knowing what was in fact happening.

With hindsight, I was a witness to terrifying events without being afraid. The darkened room was in fact the living room of our house in Droylesden, Manchester (I still regularly visit the spot on which our house stood). The house was not knocked down by the determined efforts of the German airforce, as were many house around us, but by the local Council many years later.

The figures moving around in the darkened room were my mother and my grandfather. The vivid memory is of me sitting on my mothers knee whilst this larger figure kept coming and going, entering and leaving the room. I was not conscience of any unusual noises and yet, air raids were a constant feater outside. My grandfather was an air raid warden during WW2 and after ensuing that our curtains were properly dawn, he ould then travel the district outside ensuring that all no lights (candle light)were visible.

My grandfather had served in the Boar War, had been wounded in WW1 and as I say was still serving his country in his retirement (he died in 1960 whilst I was away in Aden serving in the Royal Marines who would not give me leave to attend this brave mans funeral).

My mother had refused to enter the local air raid shelter looking after as she was - a baby. We apparently, spent every evening at during through all of the air raids on Manchester.

During the daylight hours, I was taken regularly to my grandfathers allotment. It was here that he grew most of our food.

The other vivid memory is of sitting outside of the house watching objects wheeling around the sky. Obviously aircraft, I never knew what their objective was though nearby factories could have been obvious target's.

My Aunty Ester lived just opposite at 144 Wheeler Street in Droylesden and many hours were spent in and around her house. Those visits only ceased when she and my Uncle died some twenty years later. Standing outside of that house today, and the memories would come flooding back.

I remember that I did not see much of my father during the war years. He was an engineer who errected and maintained dockyard cranes and military installations during the 1940's. Born with a deformed right hand, he was declined military service. His story was one of surviving bombing raids elsewhere, Plymouth, Bristol etc, whilst his family cowered in the darkenss in Manchester.

By 1945 I was venturing a little further away from the house and cetainly until 1955 when I went to work at Mather & Platts, in Newton Heath, local boys and my self spent hours climbing amongst ruined building.

About the same time, 1955 (?) my mother, father and grandfather, took me to see an exibit in Piccadilly, central
Manchester - on a long trailer was a German V2 rocket that was being towed around the country to show people just what, the German military had been throwing at us.

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