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This account was passed to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People's War Team, the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Open Centre, Hull.

When war broke out I was five years old. I was born on the 19th June 1935 and was living with my mum, dad and my eight brothers at 68 Rosemead Street, Newbridge Road, Hull. My sister, who was the eldest, lived with my Grandma. I went to Estcourt Street School and we had to do air raid drills, with our gas masks on, for when the air raids started.

I can still hear to this day the first nights bombing we had in our part of East Hull. That night we were all sleeping downstairs under the big dinner table, as the air raid shelter was not yet built. When the bombing started it was like someone kicking all the dustbins all over the place and when the bombing had stopped the vibration of the bombs had brought all the black clocks out of the ground and we all had shoes in our hands killing them.

But the night I remember the most was when Rosemead Street Church and the playing fields next to it was bombed. Flames twenty to forty feet high were coming out of the roof of the Church and incendiary bombs were falling all over the street and the German planes were shooting up the streets at the same time. My dad was making all of us run, one at a time, in between the bombing and shooting to the large shelter, which was now built for up to twenty families, down the terraces two doors from our home. When it came to my turn to run to the shelter I just wanted to watch the flames of the Church burning. When all of a sudden my ear was ringing from a clout from my dad telling me to run like hell into the bomb shelter or I would be getting another clout.

The next day all the kids were out in the street looking for shrapnel and bullet cases with barrage balloons flying over our heads. Later in the playing fields next to the burnt out Church we were making mud pies in the bomb crater where a land mine had blown up that night in the field.

Soon after that I and my brother Bob were sent to Bourne in Lincolnshire as Evacuees. But even to this day I still do not remember the train journey to Bourne. I went to live with Mr and Mrs Wade at No 4 Hereward Street. I called them Aunty May and Uncle Walter. Aunty May told my wife Kathleen many years later, when we went to see them, that I cried my eyes out all night on my first night there. I was no bigger than the table top, but in the end I had the most wonderful six years of my life. I had lots of love and memories. I went to a lovely school where in the first few weeks I was taught how to read by a wonderful Head Mistress.

I became an alter cherub at Bourne Abbey and then later on I became a choir boy on Sunday mornings and Sunday nights and went to Sunday School in the afternoon. I can remember all the air fields around Bourne, English and American. After the raids English and American planes were brought through the town centre Bourne on big low loaders all shot up and in bits. But on a weekend all the flying crews and ground crews would be at the dancehall to have a good time and give the MP some work to do later ha ha.

The Americans also gave us Evacuees’ toys and sweets once a year and tins of drinks and also as the saying went got any gum chum. Packet of chewing gum.

In that time my brother Bob went back to live with my mum and the rest of my brothers somewhere in Lancashire, as Bob got a bad home to stop at. My dad and two older brothers Mick and Peter stayed in Hull to work. When Mick was 18 he was sent into the paratroopers, and was made prisoner at Arnhem. In all the six years I was living at Bourne I only saw my dad and my brother Peter once and did not see my mum until I was 11 years old when I came back to live in Hull.

My Aunty May and Uncle Walter tried to adopt me but my parents would not hear of it. If I had been given a choice I would have stopped in Bourne as I was happy there. When I was brought home by my brother Peter I came home to a house of strangers.

I could write a book of all the lovely times I had in my six years living in Bourne and how sad I was to come back to Hull. People like my Aunty May and Uncle Walter should have got a big medal each for all they did for us Evacuees and all the love given to me.
And do you know I still can’t remember how I got to Bourne weather it was on a train or a bus it is just one big blank.
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Added by: Alan Brigham - www.hullwebs.co.uk

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