大象传媒

My name is Jack Halliwell from Lancashire. A local shop keeper from Chadderton was great friend to many youngsters in the area. He arranged a group holiday to Plymouth a myself and group were on our way back as war was declared ( we were round about Bristol).
Once we arrived home, i was aged 11 at the time i was really glad see my mother and she was really releaved that i was home safe.
An air raid shelter was put in our back yard (anderson Shelter) i was made a messanger for the air raid warden and assisted them their duties. School continued and on the whole apart from rationing i cant really remember feeling any dread i was a child of 11, and young boy who was a little bewildered! Playing football, throwing bricks was priority for youngsters. Later when bombers started to come to Manchester things changed. Afro's at Greengate was bombed and this made the dread and fear a reality.Occasionally air raids interupted my life. One Christmas after a lot of bombing at Manchester my friend and i went down to the town the morning after and had to walk quite away from Newton Heath into town as the bus did not run as most of builings were ablaze. I remember looking up at many buildings in Miles Platting , and went for a drink of tea at Henrys, my mate said to me 'Can you run?' i said why, and said 'we'l run off without paying' Im glad to say we didnt, my friend went on to become an editor with Daily Express!
As a child , the war on the whole didnt seem to effect our lives (apart from rationing) so strong was the spirit, our mothers worked hard to save us from worry.

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