大象传媒

My father was too young for the first war and a bit old for the second, but his health would have precluded military service anyway. He was never a fit man, he told us he had meningitis as a child, he also had astigmatism so his eyesight was bad and he always suffered from bronchitis. He used to do his bit fire-watching instead, as part of the wartime air-raid precautions (ARP).
One particular night in about 1941, I was abruptly awakened to find myself face down in the coal in the cellar of number 14 Bude Road, Leeds 11. The Germans had dropped a bomb about 50 yards away in the street behind our house. There were many air-raid warnings and lots of anti-aircraft gunfire. There were a few raids directed at Leeds, but more often we seemed to get random stuff, as though they were getting rid of what they had left on their way back from raids on Liverpool or Manchester.
Anyway, being used to all the noise, I used to sleep through the air raid warnings. When the sirens went off, I would be carried down from the attic and put in an old cast-iron cot in the coal cellar. On this occasion the coal heap shifted and overturned my cot, hence the rude awakening.
My mother, older sisters and brother were in the other part of the cellar which had been reinforced with thick wooden beams and brick pillars. This reinforcement was provided free by the authorities, they had to do this because it was impossible to provide enough air raid shelters for everyone.
Dad was out fire-watching as part of his ARP duties and, as luck would have it, had just called in to see how we were and to check things were all OK. He had just opened the door when the bomb fell and, because the blast pressure was equalised inside and out, our house was the only one in the area with a full set of windows. I was much too young to understand why at the time, but we were very lucky because glass was in short supply. We were doubly fortunate because had he continued on his rounds instead of calling in at home, my Dad might well have been killed.
The next morning, my elder brother and I were keen to find out what damage had been done and went round the corner into Westbourne Avenue, opposite the entrance to Dr. Drake's house, to see what was happening. Firemen were still trying to put out the flames from a broken gas main with piles of sandbags.
On the opposite corner of the street, a piece of shrapnel had gone clean through the cast-iron lamp post and ignited the gas. The lamp post, with its head blown away, had a little blue flame sticking out each side about half way up, like little blue horns. It was a picture which obviously impressed me a lot, since it remains clear to this day.
The shop fronts in Rowland Road were blown in, the Working Mens Club had no windows and the Electricity Sub-Station was pitted with shrapnel, its steel doors were still intact but that was to be expected, they were designed to keep out small boys.
My uncle Horace's house was damaged in the same raid, he lived in Fulham Terrace and a block of four back-to-back houses had been destroyed right next door to his. The police would not let him in to get his belongings out, they said it was too dangerous and likely to collapse, he managed it later though after the end wall was shored up. A few streets away were the fins and arming vane of a bomb sticking out of the middle of the road, the rest had exploded in the cellars and again demolished a complete block of four houses.
The only real raids on Leeds seemed to be aimed at Holbeck Viaduct which carried the main north-south railway line. They never hit it, but a clothing factory and warehouse in Domestic Street, near the viaduct, burned furiously for days and was razed to the ground. There was a huge tank factory at Barnbow around that time, I don鈥檛 think it was ever attacked though, perhaps they didn't know about it.
A stick of bombs was dropped down the middle of Cross Flats Park. One in the cemetery on the other side of Beeston Road, then one in the bowling green in the park, one in the tennis courts, the next just outside our school and the last in the allotments at the bottom end near Dewsbury Road. The crater made by the one outside our school became an emergency water tank, they just put a metal wall round the hole and filled it with water.

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