大象传媒

Tommy Campbell.
1905-1948.
To his memory.



BLITZ!
By John Campbell
Only God knows how many children were born in 51 Earl Street, in the York Street district of Belfast. We don't know who was the first but we are sure who was the last. My youngest Sister Elizabeth Campbell, (Betty), was born on the 18th day of February 1940, almost a year to the day the house was bombed out of existence in the 1941 blitz.
The memory of that air raid remains with me, but I have to coax it to the surface. It's as if my mind doesn't want to relive the horror of a day that saw many people killed and injured. A recent conversation with my oldest sister Jessie brought it back to mind.
It was Easter. My oldest sister Jessie was about twelve, I was around five and Betty, the baby was about ten months. Our childish minds were concentrating on the Easter egg Mum had had got one of the lady cooks in the bakery in the next Street to make for us. Croskery's was the name of the bakery and the same man owned our house It was about half the size of a rugby ball and the same shape. It was made of black cooking chocolate with bright coloured buttons all over it. A thin scrawl of icing sugar ran across the top of it shakily spelling out: HAPPY EASTER. As sweet rationing was in progress, we saw it as a special treat, and couldnt wait to eat it.
The only two missing were Dad and our eldest brother Tommy, who was called after him. Dad was out fire watching and Tommy, who was about eight years old was spending Easter with his Granda Campbell in 13 St Quentin Park Glengormley. Jessie and I were in our nightclothes as was the baby. Mum had hidden the egg in the kitchen cabinet and was reaching for it when the sirens began to wail. We never got to see it that night, let alone taste it.
Mum quickly wrapped Betty in her shawl and took Jessie's hand. Jessie took mine and we walked through the lane into North Thomas Street to the air raid shelter. There was a larger and safer shelter almost outside No 51, but Mum preferred the one in North Thomas Street, probably because she would be sharing it with members of her family, including her mother, who lived in the Street. The large shelters were flat roofed and were located in the wide Streets. The smaller ones had sloped roofs and were found in the narrow Streets like North Thomas Street. The large ones were built in the middle of the road and the small one were erected close to the kerbside. There was generally two built face to face with a small gate between them and a concrete post in the middle of the path at the roadside. This was to keep the children from running out into the traffic.
I'm not sure how long we spent in the shelter. I was not aware of any danger, but I remember the screams of the bombs and the muffled explosions. A cloth capped man stood at the door of the shelter that was built just opposite No 10, where my Aunt Florrie and her large family lived. He had his foot across the doorway to stop youngsters like myself from wandering out. When I approached the door out of curiosity, he lifted me in his arms and held me aloft. There was another shelter two or three feet away so we were reasonably safe.
I watched as the dark sky was lit up by anti aircraft fire that punctuated the incessant whine coming from the marauding war planes I remember the man swearing softly and defiantly as he looked up at the planes in the sky. Anti-Aircraft guns on the roof of Gallaghers factory barked back at the invaders, as did a Royal Navy destroyer berthed in the nearby Pollock Dock. I learned this a few days later when I heard my Dad tell Mum the damage would have been greater had the ship not been there I remembered how I had sat on my Granny English鈥檚 sofa between two uniformed sailors from this ship. They laughed and joked with me as I sat in my pyjamas waiting on the women to retire to the shelter. The seamen had run into the house when the sirens started wailing. I remember they were called big Bill and wee Bill. We never saw them again.
Later in the dimly lit shelter I watched innocently as a woman smiled apologetically at me before sitting down to urinate on the floor. There was no privacy or dignity in such conditions. Mom and her Mother and sisters and their little ones just huddled up to each other for comfort and support.
My next memory bubble sees me standing transfixed outside the air raid shelter in Earl Street. How I got there, I don鈥檛 remember. Smoke was coming from it and bundles of clothing were piled against one of the walls that was still standing. Flame and fire were all around. I seemed to stand outside myself and watched as a man looked at me apprehensively before depositing bundles of burnt clothing beside others. Only now do I recognize the man's concern at what my young eyes were seeing: mutilated bodies, some without arms or legs being stacked like dirty laundry in the war 鈥榯orn street. The image of the man is still stark in my memory. He is silhouetted against a background of flame and smoke. I remember he stopped in his tracks when he saw me. He was fully dressed with a cap on his head. He disappeared back into the smoke, presumably to search for more bodies.
I turned around and saw a lorry mount the pavement outside our house that had been badly damaged by a blast that wrecked half a dozen houses on the other side of Earl Lane. Perhaps I recoiled instinctively from the shock of what I was seeing at the shelter Mum and Dad were loading our belongings onto the lorry. I remember seeing the huge Bush radio that was my father's pride and joy, being put in a safe place. The 303 Lee Enfield rifle, issued to him as a member of the Air Raid Patrol was rescued from beneath the bed and placed in the cab. Dad stayed in the Street to help with the wounded and dead and would later join us in Glengormley.
Our house had been looted before we were able to go back to it and Mum's club book money, which she kept in the wardrobe in her bedroom, was stolen Granda Campbell arrived on the scene having walked all the way from Glengormley. The lorry was loaded to capacity, leaving no room for Granda, Jessie or me.
Mum sat on the back of the lorry with Betty wrapped in her shawl. She smiled bravely and waved at us as the lorry moved off in the direction of Granda Campbells home in 13 St Quentin Park.
Jessie remembers more. A row of houses in Earl Lane, between North Thomas and Dock Street looking country wards, and not far from the air raid shelter we had huddled in, had been wiped out. She saw the bodies laid end to end in the narrow street. Granda Campbell had put my bewildered head behind the skirt of his long overcoat to keep the horrible sight from my eyes.
We walked by Grove Park on the York Road. We crossed over to McCann's public house and I remember seeing Granda, with his foot on a beer barrel and drinking a pint in the Street outside the bar. He stared grimly at the devastation all around us. A large barrage balloon, anchored on the space that would later become the car park for the Grove Baths, swung eerily in the night sky.
I remember the long walk up Gray's Lane vividly. Not a word was spoken the entire journey as we all were deeply shocked by the horror of it all. Grandad's mind was miles away, probably reliving his army experiences during the first war and perhaps wondering how this one was going to end. We were told he had also served in the Boer War and had received the Military Medal according to his stepson in a letter to me, many years later, from his home in Australia. There is no substantive proof of this except Billy鈥檚 claim in the letter. Billy is now dead.
Aunt Isabella, my Father's sister, has a Mons Star medal with Father鈥檚 name and regimental number on it, which proves he served the duration of the Great War. His father was also called James and was a shoemaker. I traced him back to before 1850 in a house in Molineaux Street (No.8), which sat in the shadow of the Henry Street Spinning Mill. Our dad won four campaign medals in World War II; unfortunately these were lost in transit when we moved Mum鈥檚 belongings from 45 Earl Street to Oakmont Drive in the seventies. This was in the early seventies, when the York Street area was demolished to create a new ring Road called The West Link.
We eventually reached the house in Glengormley. We saw our brother Tommy's young, worried face at his bedroom window as we approached the house. He rushed down to tell us he'd been watching the pall of fire and smoke over the city. He wasn't to know a later and more local war would deprive him of his life many years later.
When I force myself to think of the destruction of that night I see the blitzed spaces left by the bombed building. Four or five houses between Earl Lane and the bank at the corner of York Street had been destroyed. Directly opposite our house, Ted Heyburn's pub, at the corner of Little York Street and Earl Street was also gone. I remember sitting in the upstairs lounge of this pub with my father and looking down into the street. Now it was no longer there.
Earl Place was completely wiped out, as was Ambrose Street. These two streets butted into each other in an ell shape. You could walk through Earl Place to Ambrose and vice versa. This entrance to Earl Place was roughly in the centre of the block between Nelson Street and Little York Street. The other entrance to Ambrose Street was in Little York Street between Earl Street and Trafalgar Street. On the opposite side of Little York Street, the whole block had been demolished. All of Earl Street from Little York Street to York Street and from the York Street corner to Trafalgar Street corner had been decimated. Only McCaughey's bag store remained. A huge water tank was built in this space, presumably to help protect the Gallagher building that survived the blitz. Further down Earl Street towards Garmoyle Street and almost opposite St Josephs School, 2 or 3 houses were demolished. Across York Street, the Church on the corner along with some other buildings was also destroyed. None of these dwelling places were ever rebuilt. In many instances commercial properties sprung up in their place. York Street had been lined with long smelly tubes resembling smoke stacks. These were lit when a raid was imminent. They filled the air with thick acrid black smoke that almost poisoned us, but didn鈥檛 do much to deter the aim of the enemy planes.
With childlike innocence, we youngsters used the bombed houses as playgrounds until they were pulled down.. The vacant ground or debris' as we called them were later used as football pitches by the children and young men of the area.
When Dad was home on leave he encouraged Mum to bring into the house, groups of young British Royal navy men who often wandered aimlessly up and down the streets. Mum would make endless cups of tea. The sailors would flirt with Jessie and her girl friends, who would also hang around the house.
Once I remember walking into the parlour and finding the girls weeping bitterly, and comforting each other. A crumpled newspaper lay beside the popular song sheets of the day. It carried news of a torpedoed destroyer that had sunk with all hands. Mother told me sadly that the lads who had filled the house with laughter and fun a few days earlier had been members of that ship's crew. I think I learned then that the sum total of war was that men died and women cried. I recall a few lines of a song the girls sang depicting another tragedy of the war at sea which was going badly for Britain.
H.M.S. Hood lies in the deep/
These were the words that made Mothers weep.
I read recently that Englishman Harry Ramsden who opened one of his famous chip shops on the site of the old Gallagher factory was a matelot during those days and had wandered about York Street with his mates when his ship berthed in the Pollock Dock. I like to think that perhaps he was one of the young men who visited our house dressed in tight navy tunics and wide bellbottomed trousers and shiny black shoes fastened with a single silver buckle. They always carried their cigarettes and matches in the black caps around which ran a black ribbon with the letters H.M.S. embossed in gold at the front. In summer they wore white duck suits and white hats. Sadly, because of the recent civil unrest we never see men or boys in dress uniform on the streets.
In some instances the young fresh faces were no older looking than my brother Tommy, or the lad who lived two or three doors away. I remember him home on leave. He spent the best part of one day of his precious time pushing me up and down the street on my bicycle, stopping only to adjust his cap. He went back to his ship and I never saw him again. I was told he was lost at sea.
Dad always made the young men feel at home. He had been a merchant navy man before settling down with Mum and he knew what it was like to be alone and friendless in a strange country.
He had volunteered a few times for the forces, but his occupation of telephone linesman was listed and they wouldn't let him go. Eventually in 1943, he signed on the T124X. He was reasonably old to enlist (38) but the Royal Navy was crying out for experienced seamen to join its ranks and Dad as an ex' merchant sailor was accepted as a greaser. The T124x was actually a force of merchant seamen who wore the King's uniform. He told us he was joining up to fight Hitler because his air force had bombed our house. However he spent the last four years of the war on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific and never saw a German
When at sea he wrote to each of us individually, and expected a letter in return. On one occasion I took my letter to Mountcollyer school on the Limestone Road (now Curries), and opened it during class to read it. I became engrossed with the contents and didn鈥檛 hear the female teacher approach me. She whacked me across the head with her open hand and then dragged me from my seat to a corner of the room where I stood shamefaced until the end of the period.
We never knew when he would be home on leave but were always delightfully surprised when we'd come down the stairs to go to school and find him sitting at the kitchen table tucking into a large fry. The kitbag would then be opened and gifts for all of us would be produced.
His going away would be sad. All of us would be taken with him and Mum as we walked to the Heysham boat. We would all sit down to tea and buns in one of the many cafes that dotted the waterfront. After that it would be kisses and hugs and silent prayers for his safe return. The Harbour Bulkies (security men) looked on impassively as they guarded the huge shed doors that led to the gangplank of cross channel ferry.
Then it would be a slow walk home through the darkened streets, and maybe a fish supper from Nelsons or Crooks chip shop. The supper would be taken from its wrapping of newspaper and placed on plates on the table in the kitchen. Chairs and stools would be formed in a semicircle around the roaring fire, if it was Wintertime. The toasting fork would work overtime as toasted bread covered with cheese would supplement the fish supper.
The kitchen was also large and roomy. In the right hand alcove as one sat facing the large fireplace was a set of cupboards. Dad kept bits and pieces in this and also cigarettes and tobacco that he brought home from foreign places. Most of it was smuggled in by him and I remember watching rather puzzled as mum helped him take off his tight fitting tunic to reveal sticky ropes of chewing or pipe tobacco wrapped around his waist. This he would give to his acquaintances.
A large mirror hung in the centre of the wall above the coal fire. On the ledge known as the fireboard sat a clock and a number of ornaments plus some framed photographs. Dad was fond of having his photo taken each time he came home on leave. Sometimes one could see by the silly expression on his face that he'd spent too much time in the pub before the photo call. Sadly few of these pictures are in our possession.
On the other side of the chimneybreast was a shelf with an embossed front. It was about five feet from the floor and held his beloved Bush wireless. Before he had joined up, the wireless would come on at news time and I still can hear the crisp toneless voice of the newsreader as he recited the litany of losses or gains, defeats or victories in the far flung war torn theatres of conflict. Dad would listen with pursed lips and narrowed eyes to the catalogue of terror.
He fumed as news of the war, which was going badly for Britain, filtered through, and Heaven help any youngster who made a noise during the broadcast. The first warning would be an ominous wheesh' and the next would be a warmed ear'. We learned to keep quiet and soon the only sound to accompany the newsreader's voice was Mum's knitting needles clicking relentlessly.
A large table on which we ate our meals sat in front of the kitchen window. Dad and Mum brooked no nonsense at the table during mealtime and no one was allowed to read whilst they were eating. When he was home on leave we were only allowed one break from the monotony, and that was when the stirring march that preceded Radio Newsreel at seven o鈥檆lock every night, roared from the wireless. Almost in unison we would all beat the tabletop with our knives and forks in tune with the music. He told us his shipmates did that on board ship when they heard the tune. Other than that dad was a stickler for table manners. But he would often take Betty on his knee and feed her from his plate. During the war we would eat a breakfast cereal called Briskies. Milk was always plentiful and we drank a lot of that. Powdered eggs and Spam (tinned meat) were the staple diet. The Spam was edible, but the eggs were terrible.
Memories of this time are of the darkness of the blackout and the hordes of people in the streets including the many foreign servicemen. We would hear French, Belgian, Polish and many other languages in the little corner shops, and in the town center, as young men from countries all over Europe walked our Streets. The black American troops kept together and roamed the streets in large packs. The women would generally close their front doors when these GI鈥檚 came down Earl Street. Their behaviour was unruly at times and some of them would hurl sexist insults at the females, but this was the exception rather than the rule as most of them were generally well behaved. However their appearance at the local Jig in North Thomas Street would sometimes start an orgy of violence that that only stopped when the local police accompanied by MPs and Shore Patrols arrived. The local men resented the not always unrequited attention they were paying to the women, and trouble would erupt. There would be fierce hand to hand fighting which we kids relished from the comparative safety of the air raid shelters roof.
White American soldiers and sailors seemed to wander alone about the area. They stood on the Street corners chewing cigars and studying the girls going to and from the tobacco factory in York Street. Sometimes they would stop and pass the time of day with the locals. Often they would throw coins or sticks of gum in our direction when we approached them. Some mischievous ones would give us money to open the door of the Italian fish and chip shop and shout Italian Bazoo, or words to that effect, at the old man called Geordie who owned the shop. He would chase after us with a meat cleaver, and the servicemen would laugh uproariously.
One Christmas in particular held precious memories. It was 1944 and Dad鈥檚 ship had docked in New York for a few days. He came home a few weeks later with presents that made us the envy of our friends. That leave also provided us with a hilarious Christmas Eve. I wrote the following poem to record the memories of the night.

CHRISTMAS IN YORK STREET 1944.
When Tommy and I heard the old staircase creak,
we half-close our eyes, but continued to peek.
We'd snuggled for hours in our big double bed,
now came the moment for which we'd both prayed.
"That must be Santa," Tom whispered to me,
his face a confusion of terror and glee.
"Doesn't he come down the chimney" I said,
for mother had cleaned it with lots of black-lead.

Said Tommy the eldest, as loud as he dares;
"he musta come in by the big range downstairs.
"I'm sure I heard footsteps, I swear it's the truth,
like someone was tip-toeing over our roof."
A noise on the stair struck us suddenly mute.
I hoped he would find where the stockings were put.
Baggy and roomy, the kind sailors wore,
we'd begged them from Daddy, because they held more.

The bedroom door squeaked and the handle turned slow,
we quietly trembled from temple to toe.
The door opened widely, and there stood our Da!
Being held up by a half-amused Ma.
"That isn't Santa" I thought, filled with dread.
"Maybe he's fell off the roof and he's dead!
That's it." I mused, watching through narrowed eyes,
"Daddies must fill-in, if Santa Claus dies."

Dad looked as if he himself might be ill,
till Ma hissed: "I think you've drunk more than your fill;
you've always stayed sober on each Christmas Eve."
"Ach Sarah" he whispered, "I've just started leave....
I've had a few drinks with my shipmates," he grinned,
and just at that moment, we heard him break wind.
It came like a fog-horn, a long mournful sound.......
and went on for ages until it died down.

From under the blankets spontaneous laughter
burst with a deluge remembered years after.
"We'd better tell Santa this pair's still awake."
laughed Mum, adding, "that was a rude noise to make."
We stayed in convulsions; as they left the room
Mum's girlish giggles came back through the gloom.
We finally slept, but when morning dawned bright
we leapt to our stockings and found them packed tight
with apples and oranges, and toys made from wood,
plus six pennies, brassoed, to make them look good.
The presents were meagre, but we were impressed
knowing that Santa was doing his best.
A war was in progress and Dad home from sea
was quite the best present for Tommy and me.
When I think of that Christmas, the laughter comes yet,
but closely behind it comes tears of regret.
I'm the only one left from that memorable night,
we huddled in bed filled with wonder and fright,
till Dad's body-function came mellow and free....
And left priceless memories for Tommy and me.
John Campbell 16-6-87.

My brother Tommy never saw the poem. He had died six years earlier in 1981.
The pennies from our stockings would have bought us some items we considered luxuries at the time. In Grannie Shearn鈥檚 we could get four crab apples for a penny. In Wee Annie's next door, we bought penny drinks and penny slices of ginger cake. In Wellwoods chemist shop on York Street facing Gallaghers, we bought sticks of brown cinnamon which we would light with matches and smoke like cigarettes. Wellwoods also sold pea-shooters. These were thin slender glass tubes that we loaded with barley and used as blow-pipes to annoy people.
In the Summer of 1944 the wail of the sirens that warned of an air raid began to be heard less often. The troops who had wandered the Streets disappeared as the Normandy invasion began.
In 1945 we heard the declaration that the war was over in Europe with great joy. I was taken into town by a friend of my Mums who was called Mrs Rogers. I remember walking through a densely packed Royal Avenue on VE day with a small union jack in my hand. I was two months short of my ninth birthday. We joined the crowd outside the Belfast Telegraph Office. The placards, as we called the glass fronted notice boards that proclaimed the end of the war in changing headlines, were read out loud by the people who packed the pavement and road in front of the building. It was a happy and wonderful day for the people of the Province who had suffered at the hands of the Hitler鈥檚 air force.
Later on that day the boys of the area who could play musical instruments formed a small band. Those of us who couldn't play followed them as they paraded along York Street to the Belfast Telegraph offices and back again.
The local men who had joined the fight began to return home. Dad was still engaged somewhere in the Pacific. The victory over Japan came in August 1945. Again the kids of the neighbourhood celebrated. We lit a huge bonfire in the middle of Earl Street at the junction of Nelson Street. The wood was supplied by removing the doors and other wooden fixtures from the nearby and not so nearby air raid shelters. After all, they were now surplus to requirement.
There is an image etched in my memory that will remain with me until the day I die. It has been saved in the computer of my mind and surfaces when I open that memory bank. The vision is of a small living room (to us it was the kitchen) in 45 Earl Street in the docks area of Belfast. It was breakfast time in the Campbell household and we were all standing or sitting around the kitchen table. The large table sat in front of a back window that looked out into the white washed walls of the back yard. It was the month of June, in the year 1946.
Betty, the youngest was being fed by Mum. Jessie the oldest, Tommy, and myself were fending for ourselves, tucking into Briskies and milk followed by cheese and toast. It was about 8am.
We were making so much noise we didn鈥檛 hear the key go into the front door and the footsteps in the long hall signifying an early morning visitor.
We turned to the kitchen door as we heard it open. After a split second of surprised and astonished silence, we all cheered in unison as our eyes fell on the man standing framed in the doorway. It was our Father, home on leave, unannounced, but very, very welcome.
I can still see his image. On his head was a smokey-blue coloured trilby hat. A blue shirt and a dark tie were visible beneath a long overcoat that stretched to his knees. Blue serge trousers with a turn-up sat over new black shoes. The whole outfit was in fact brand new, making him look like one of the bike-riding Society men who often called to our house to collect payments for the penny insurance policies Mum had on all of us.
The civilian clothes puzzled me. Over the years we had been used to seeing him enter the room wearing his Royal Navy uniform under his blue Burberry. At this time of the year it would have been a white duck suit complete with white hat. There was nothing strange about his smile. It was a wide joyous smile, a glad to be home smile, which showed off his smattering of gold teeth Five-year-old Betty clambered from her mothers knee and ran towards him, and was almost knocked down by us older ones as we rushed to get the first hug.
Dropping his kitbag and battered brown suitcase, he embraced Mother warmly as we clung around his legs laughing with delight. Soon we were opening the suitcase and the kitbag looking for the presents he always managed to bring us. The overcoat and hat came off and a large Ulster fry was soon placed on the table before him. He hoisted Betty onto his knee, and as we watched, he dipped a piece of fried soda bread into the yolk of an egg and fed it to her. Dad was back. This was to be the procedure each night at suppertime, for the rest of his life.
We were overjoyed when we later learned from Mum that he was back for good. The war had finished the previous year and he was now on resettlement leave. This was the reason for the civilian clothes. It was his demob outfit, provided by the Government, or as Dad called it, his utility suit. I never saw him wear the Paddy hat again, but the suit and overcoat were kept and worn regularly until he died from the last of a series of strokes some eighteen months later. He also kept some heavy blue shirts that I believe were known as number eights and wore these about the house. He also wore them to work when he returned to his job as telephone Linesman with the GPO, now known as BT, a few weeks after his demob. He remained there until he died on the 22 nd of January 1948, one month into his 43rd birthday. Years later I was told by one of his shipmates that the blood clots that brought on the fatal stroke were probably caused by a botched shipboard medical operation carried out on Dad after an accident at sea. Of course there is no proof of this.
His youngest son Alan, born on the 2nd of April 1947 was eight months old when our Father died. He has no recollection of the man who gave us life. We had seen little of Dad during the three years he was away and had missed him during those, our formative years. We had looked forward to many happy post war memories. Now he was gone forever. Is it any wonder I treasure the memory of him standing in the kitchen doorway of a now demolished 45 Earl Street all those long years ago, and hearing from Mum the joyous news that he was home for good? END John Campbell 2003.

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