大象传媒

I was 14 years old when the war started and had just left school. It didn`t affect me very much at the time, but I remember my Dad, Alfred, listenening to the news on the radio all the time. He had been a prisoner of war for 4 years in the first war. He was now in the ARP.

We lived in Rosebery Street, Moss Side, Manchester. My two younger sisters, Vera and Margaret, were evacuated to the country. My two older brothers, Alfred and Bernard, were called up almost immediately, which upset my mother, Lillian. Bernard was 18 and Alfred 22.

We had a shed in the back yard, where we kept our bicycles and things. We were told to clear it out and then they came along and put a 8" concrete roof on it. This was to be our air raid shelter. My mum fitted it out with mattreses and cushions.

The first air raids started in Manchester around Christmas time 1940, I think,and we were in that shelter nearley every night for about 2 or 3 weeks. Sometimes my Dad had to drag me out of bed to get me down there. The most frightening thing was the sound of the bombs as were coming down.

There were many parts of Manchester hit, it was thought they they were aiming for Trafford Park, where the ammunition factories were. The city centre was also badly hit, the place where I worked was flattened to the ground when I arrived one morning. With that I had to find another job, I was told at the labour exchange I had the choice of the Land Army or a factory. I didn`t want to leave home, being only 16, so I chose the factory. I was sent to Dunlops where I stayed till the end of the war. There was much war work going on at Dunlops, a lot of it hush hush.

During this time I had a date with a lad called Frank, we went to see a film at the Odeon in Oxford Street. Half way through the film, the sirens went and we had to rush to the nearest air raid shelter, the nearest being in Piccadily. We stayed there all night until the all clear went. My boyfriend put me on a tram home, where I found my Dad waiting for me at the tram stop. I got home at about 9 o`clock in the morning.

Of course we didn`t suffer as much in the north as those in the south did, but we all got through it in the end.

Fortunately my two brothers came home safely,along with other members of the family.

On the whole,when I think about it, it was the older people who suffered more, like my parents, going through it all a second time, but coping.

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