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Two of the members of Firshill and Pitsmoor Local History Group, Annie Neal and Bert Corbridge, lived on adjoining streets at Pye Bank, Pitsmoor, Sheffield when World War 2 was declared and they both had similar memories of what it was like.
They lived in terraced houses, of which there were many in that area, and at first - and certainly up to the time of the Blitz - they had no air-raid shelters. When there was a raid they all went down into their cellars and hoped for the best. However, sometimes when the siren went some people ran up on to "the rec" - an open recreation area up on the top of the hill. From there they got a grandstand view of the Blitz and other raids and could see the German plans going overhead and dropping bombs on the east end of Sheffield and factories and houses on fire.
Bert remembers that lots of people got killed near where he lived and a house at the the top of Marshall Street was hit by a delayed action bomb which exploded during the following day and killed Mrs Beatson. He and others often watched as bodies of casualties were carried out from the cellars in the mornings after a raid. He recalled that if you were in the cellar when a bomb dropped closed by, you would feel the impact of the explosion and then all the air would seem to gush through and be sucked out of the cellar - it was a very strange feeling!
Annie's husband was in the Home Guard and she herself worked at Howsons Cooked Meats stall in the Norfolk Market Hall - food rationing made things quite difficult but she says they managed OK. Everyone just got on with it and did the best they could in the circumstances. She was a young married woman in her 20s when the war was on and had two children who attened Pye Bank School. Thankfully her house did not sustain any real damage beyond, like many others, broken windows from the bomb blasts.
At the end of the war there were big street parties all over the area and absolutely everybody joined in. At first people could not take in that it was all over and it took a while for people to get used to not having to sleep "with one ear open" to listen for the sirens.

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