´óÏó´«Ã½

Interview with Albert Pope

Born 6/7/1920. He was 18 when war broke out, born in Salford.

When the war began, because of the work that we were on, which was vital to the war effort, an order was made making it a reserved occupation. Some of the lads who were in the Territorial Army and who had already been called up, were brought back because of the job. To assist with defence of the factory, an LDV group was formed and the squad I was in held the record for being on duty when there was an air raid on. We did guard duty every eighth night between long working days and worked 7 days a week for months on end. When it was the Christmas blitz, along with my family, we went to the Sunday evening service at the Salford Dock Mission. When the sirens went, some people went home and some of us spent the night in the basement until the all clear. We hadn’t been in the house long, which was in the street at the back of the Dock Mission when there was a knock on the door ordering us to leave the house, as a land mine had landed nearby which hadn’t exploded. We went to stay with friends on the other side of Ordsall Park until we were allowed home on the Friday. This is one of the outstanding memories of the war.

How many were there in your family?
Five of us. Mother and Dad and my brother and sister.

And where were you at work?
Salford Electrical Instruments

Where did you live?
In Salford, very near to the docks. Typical Salford people, the old Salford people were always very friendly, very neighbourly because everybody was in the same boat. It was quite a poor area because a lot of the men worked on the docks and it was casual labour in those days. They had to go in the morning and they’d be stood outside the main dock gate in a crowd and somebody would come out and pick people out, and the same again at dinner time. They only worked til dinner time and then they had to back for the afternoon shift and take their chance.

Do you remember the day war broke out?
Yes. It was on the Sunday morning and I was actually at church when the announcement was made.

How did people react?
Quite calmly actually. Well, from the people I was with at church and then when I got home, mum and dad told me what had been said and the reactions were quite calm. There was no panic or anything.

What are your main memories of wartime?
This was one and there was another blitz at Whitsun after this which I thought was more intense but it didn’t last as long. The Christmas one of course lasted from just turned half past six on the Sunday evening until about seven o’ clock the following morning. I felt alright. No panic. My brother and I, in fact, during the night, nobody possibly knew that we were in the basement at the church so there was an air raid warden’s post on Trafford Road at the back of the Salisbury Hotel and we nipped across there to let them know that there were people in the basement in case anything happened.

What was rationing like?
Pretty grim but we managed. Everybody managed, you had to.

Do you remember D Day?
It wasn’t announced very well, D Day. Oh, that was when they went back across wasn’t it. I don’t remember a great lot about it really to be honest.

What about VE Day?
VE Day. When that occurred, as I say, it wasn’t announced properly and we all went into work on the morning and of course we were sent home and we were given a day off later on, a proper day off that we were prepared for. People were out in the street, quite happy about it all. The people in that area, they took things in their stride, they didn’t get very excited about anything.

Is there anything else you want to tell me about the war?
Well one of the nights when we were on guard duty there was a night shift. Not many worked on the night shift and it was a special job. One of the men was persistently coming in worse for drink and one night when we were on guard we were given the order that he wasn’t to be allowed in and of course I was on the main gate when he turned up. I told him he couldn’t go in and he persisted in trying to get in and we didn’t have bullets loaded but we had fixed bayonets and I was holding him up against the wall at the end of a bayonet. That was the only way I could get him to behave, you know, to stand still til the sergeant came down, and that was it then, he went.

And another night, in the guard room we had beds and there were racks all round the wall, rifle racks, and I reached up and pulled a rifle out of the rack. Luckily I didn’t pull the trigger, it was cocked ready for firing and I pulled the breach back and there was a bullet in the spout. As I say it was lucky. Many a time you could have just pointed at somebody and pulled the trigger knowing there was nothing there, but I didn’t. It was very fortunate. I never found out who was responsible of course. We used to go on some local spare ground drilling at dinner time and all the local kids used to come around, oh it was funny with them, they thought it was great fun. We used to go on Peel Park as well, training. Rifle drill, lying down, we didn’t fire obviously, just pretending to fire. It’s amazing, we held the record for being on duty when there were air raids on. Remarkable the way it worked out. And of course we worked until eight o’ clock and went straight on guard duty and came off in the morning at eight o’ clock and straight into work. There was breakfast provided for us in the canteen.

So when did you sleep?
As I said, there were beds in the guard room so if you wasn’t actually on duty outside you could lie on the bed.

So how long were you on duty for during the shift?
Four hours outside and there used to be three of us outside. One on the main gate and one at the back and one walking round on his own. He’d go all the way round and then come back to the main gate. Whoever was on the gate, then he’d walk round and that’s how we used to do it. So that you wasn’t in the one place all the time. At the back there was a metal shelter that you could stand in if anything, if the guns were going off, because you never knew where the shrapnel was going to land. In fact, one night, we were, not on guard duty this, this was at home, the houses across from us, we lived in Treble Street, which was immediately at the back of the Dock Mission and there were houses opposite and at the end of a block there was an opening and those houses had air raid shelters. So all the ladies and the children used to go in the air raid shelters and the men used to stand outside. And I’d been stood against the wall and remarkably we moved across and we’d just moved across when a piece of shrapnel hit the wall where I’d been stood. We used to watch where the shells burst, wherever they burst if it were over there we’d go over against that wall. If they were over the side, we’d stay at this wall.

There was never any panic, everybody just took it their stride.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.