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Memories are painful for some, as it was a time of fear and apprehension. Anderson shelters appeared within weeks of the declaration of war and concrete roofed shelters went up in school playgrounds and in streets. The cellars in The Barracks in Victoria Street could hold a few hundred people. Bunks were installed and electric lighting fitted and the doors were kept open between the separate cellars. Other people prepared their own shelters under the stairs. Blackouts were made with curtains and shutters and tape was put across windows to prevent the problem of flying glass. Even the bus windows of Duggins鈥� bus were painted dark blue so that they couldn鈥檛 be seen from the air at night. Sirens were tested and in schools, children were set the task of knitting socks, helmets and scarves. While shelters were being built, children would play with the cement mixers and Eric Bailey nearly lost his arm. While recovering in the North Staffs. Infirmary, he remembers watching a Spitfire chasing a German fighter plane. Everything was in short supply. Jack Morral even bought back from his customers, copies of 鈥淲omen鈥檚 Weekly鈥� for 4d. so that he could sell them again.

Men were conscripted as soon as they reached the age of 18. Elsie Brereton remembers as a young girl being taken by her mother, Elsie Brayford, to the R.A.F. camp at Shawbury. Her mother wanted to see her boy Reginald before he disappeared but she was not allowed into the camp. The guards said that they would shoot if she were to cross the line. All she could do was walk along the fence line and shout to her boy on the inside. (Reginald returned safely from the war. See below.)

Ted Mason from Keele, then a Corporal, was in charge of a convoy of 4 or 5 tanks which were being brought from the South. He was leading the convoy on a motor bike but a burst tyre caused him to crash as they came through Newcastle and he ended up in the City General for an unexpected stay in his home town! But, for many, it was a time of separation. Young men were away and young women were sent to work in munitions factories in Coventry or Birmingham.

War Work

Alice Askey, n茅e Simms, remembers 7 girls going together as Bevan Girls to make piston rings in a factory near Folesworth and living in a hostel near Bedworth. Even if you continued to live at home, there were new jobs at B.S.A., (Birmingham Small Arms) which later became Rists Wires and Cables, or at Radway Green or Swynerton Royal Ordinance Factories. Alice worked at the A.I.D. (the Aeronautical Inspection Directorate) at Swynerton weighing bullets. There were many rejects, which were sent back, only to be knocked a bit and sent forward again. There was a special ward at the North Staffs. Infirmary for those killed or injured at Swynerton. Seven were killed just the day before Alice started there. Others were yellow from working with sulphur.

Eric Bailey remembers that at B.S.A., they made Lewis guns and you could hear the 鈥榬at-tat-tat鈥� all day in Knutton when they were testing them. Rolls Royce came later and built jet engines which had to stay on test for 24 hours at a time which was very noisy. Alice remembers doing a twelve-hour shift at B.S.A. and having to walk home through the fog with Phyillis Mayor, using their torches to lead the bus and when they reached Knutton, the bus left them. She also remembered 鈥楨NSA parties at B.S.A.. ENSA, was the 'Entertainments National Service Association' but it was affectionately and irreverently know as 'Every Night Something Awful'.

Home Front

There was a house behind Minshull's shop in Church Street, which stood at a right angle to the others in the row and this was used for fire watching by the A.R.P. (air raid precautions) during the war. People were enlisted as A.R.P. wardens and messengers, especially those men who were in protected jobs and so were still around. Eddie D鈥橝rcy, who worked at Michelin, was in the A.R.P. and Gerald remembers his dad having a pack of aeroplane silhouette cards which were used for recognising planes when they were on spotting duty. Part of their meagre equipment was a stirrup pump and a bucket of sand to deal with incendiary bombs. Sheila Martin was also in the A.R.P. and she was on duty with Eddie the night Eunice Stubbs was killed. She drove the ambulance while Eddie, Rafe Green, Arthur Busby and Dr. Johnson cared for Eunice. The house had been hit by a stray shell intended for Crewe, which came through the roof and ceiling, through Eunice in her bed and ended up in the cellar where it remained unexploded. St. Luke鈥檚 school was closed the next day in case it was a full size unexploded bomb. Eunice鈥檚 name appears on Silverdale War Memorial, one of the rare ones to carry the name of a women civilian, because it recalls the names of those from the village who were killed as a result of the war, not simply those who died in uniform.

Sergeant Brayford ran the Home Guard but there were always lads coming to him with excuses. There were gas masks plus baby ones and Mickey Mouse ones with a red nose for younger children. Fanny Deakin worked with others in the Catholic Church hut in Downing Street issuing them and giving instructions on how they were put on. Jack Lowe, then a Boy Scout, remembers helping out there.

American Soldiers

There was a big camp at Keele Hall and lots would come marching down to the Catholic Church to mass on Sundays. But Mass wasn鈥檛 the only thing on their minds. Virginia Valco was one Silverdale G.I. Bride. Jane (Jinny) D鈥橝rcy, who had been a tailoress and had worked sewing British uniforms at Enderley Mills, always commented on the better quality of the material of the American uniforms. However, it seems that the British rough serge was much more resistant in the trenches than the American barathea.

Evacuees

When the evacuee families arrived, they were taken round the village in a bus and villagers were asked 鈥淗ow many can you take?鈥� If you had a spare room, you had to take somebody in. They also took the Police Station over. Everyone gave clothes or furniture to help these families but some of the language from certain families was foul. Some were also lousy.

One family came to relatives in Abbey Street, the Nicholsons. There were four boys and two were put next door. They were lousy when they arrived. They would pinch anything and break windows. It was felt that their family in London didn鈥檛 want them back. Georgina Stone is one girl who came and married a Silverdale lad, Able Stone. There was a family of four sisters, of whom Mrs. Adams housed two and one went back. They had been in shelters for weeks before coming to Silverdale. There was the Piggot family, the McCarthys and Paula Jones and her sister, Edna. The Day family moved into what had been 鈥楾he Victoria鈥� pub prior to the 1940s. Then they moved to High Street. They all had red hair. - Veronica and Freddie. The Brewers family moved into a house next to Nickolaides' off-licence. Druys moved into what had been the Old Post Office and telephone exchange.

Food

There were strong memories of home made jam, of dried egg and 鈥榚isenglass鈥� to preserve eggs in an enamel bucket. There was lentil soup and boiled potatoes and peas with everything. There was special orange juice and cod liver oil for babies for which mothers had to queue up. One centre of distribution was the Methodist School rooms in Earl St. which had a hollow sounding, wooden floor. Everything was rare and the only fruit was local and in season such as plums, apples and rhubarb. Dried apple rings was one way to preserve the apples until Christmas. A parcel was once left by a Cypriot soldier for a certain local lady but she never got it. The oranges and everything else in it had soon gone. Bananas were impossible to get and unknown to any child born during the war years until a train load of them was derailed at Wrinehill, near Betley Road Station which led to a glut of them on the local Black Market. Is this the origin of Kutton's local name, 'The Banana Docks'?

Rationing was a part of life. People would swap coupons for things they didn鈥檛 want, such as sweets, in exchange for others for the things they needed. Clothing coupons would also be sold or traded. Shopkeepers had to bundle the coupons into tens before sending them off. Such things as tins of salmon were kept only for best customers. Lots of people kept hens and chickens; home reared rabbit and pork were the most common meats. Those who kept pigs had to give up their bacon ration. Bacon was one of the last things to come off ration. In 1951, when it finally came off, the ration was 5 oz. per person, which was more than most people ate or could afford. There were extra coupons for those who were tall or who had big feet. This led to arguments between families due to different treatment.

Military Service

Reginald Brayford

Once he left, R.A.F. Shawbury, Reg. served in France until he was evacuated from Le Havre after Dunkirk. He was later stationed at R.A.F. headquarters in Cairo and on the island of Socotra at the mouth of the Gulf of Aden. He returned to Ternhill in February, 1944 from where he was eventually demobbed. During his service, he was 'Mentioned in Despatches' which gives him the right to wear an acorn on his R.A.F. badge.

Frank Stanyer

Frank joined the R.A.F. Volunteers without waiting for his call up and went into Field Security. In 1940 he was attacked in mid Atlantic but he survived this and was later in West Africa before going into the dessert where he served for two years. He spent his last nine months in Jerusalem when the war was actually over. He had to go to Aleppo and take random units into Turkey. In Jerusalem, he did tours of the religious places for visiting troops with the money they paid going to the leprosy hospital run by Sister Joanna Larssen.

Eric Askey

Eric spent four and a half years in active service without once coming home. He went first to the U.S.A. and then to South Africa via Sierra Leone. In Cape Town, people were fighting to be hospitable to the troops. From there it was on to Port Tufic which meant six weeks on board ship before landing in Egypt. Then it was on to Palestine where he worked building aerodromes in places such as Haifa, Acca, Ramil and Ramit near to the Syrian border. They took over farms wholesale, including all the tools, where necessary, to level the ground for temporary runways. Later, they returned and laid concrete runways. When Australian aircraft arrived, the men had to line up along the edge of the runway to make it really obvious where they should land and yet they still missed the prepared area. In Palestine, the Royal Scots Greys had been training on horses but they were told that the horses had to go and they were given two Bren gun carriers and a tank instead. They trained on these day and night. Eric remembers 250 going off into one battle on small tanks with only 4 returning.

Before the battle of El Alemain, the first thing they noticed was the great number of lorries bringing petrol and ammunition into South Palestine. The petrol was stored in large cans which were stacked five high in blocks of twenty by twenty. The hot days and cold nights made the cans expand and contract so much that half the petrol was lost.

Eric went through El Alemain to Bengazy and on to Tobruk where there was an old civilian airfield called El Adam which became very big and important as an Allied base.

From here, it was on to Sicily and then across to the toe of Italy at Teranto. Here they were formed into a proper Building Company following the attacking army. Their main task was to rebuild the railway from Naples in the south to Milan in the north. The Germans had blown up all of the bridges and entrances to tunnels as they retreated northwards. In Florence, they were told that the railway reconstruction was no longer needed because the Allied troops had broken through before too much destruction had been done and so they had a nice break in Genoa and were flown back via Naples.

Eric was a Lance Corporal in the Royal Engineers and he was with the same Major all the way through. Captain Helm from Newcastle - the only other one from the Staffordshire Regiment in 200 officers and men - put Eric forward for promotion but the Major said 鈥淣o.鈥� He only promoted those who didn鈥檛 work, as they would make sure that the others did. The sergeants were such a useless lot that they would need another man with them simply to change the concrete mix.

William Byatt

Bill Byatt, from the Rosemary Cottages in Cemetery Lane, served in the navy , firstly on the Arctic run to Murmansk in Russia, and later on the North Atlantic run. He was shipwrecked and spent many days in a life boat watching his shipmates die. He was eventually picked up and taken to Halifax in Nova Scotia. He later married his Canadian nurse and transferred to the Canadian Navy, and eventually got his own ship as Captain. After the war, he made his life and ended his days in Canada.

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