大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Roger Marsh of the 鈥楢ction Desk 鈥� Sheffield鈥� Team on behalf of Roger Marsh and has been added to the site with the author鈥檚 permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Pre-school memories of WWII in the East End of Sheffield - Part 1
By
Roger Marsh

I was only four years old when the Second World War ended, so for me it is difficult to separate what are my real memories from what is information that I have picked up listening to my family recalling those times. Since I was there and lived through that period I do not suppose that it matters too much either way since memories are re-enforced by there repeated telling. This can sometimes result in the accuracy varying with time.

I was born on April 28, 1941, at 18 Fearnehough Street, Darnall, Sheffield, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. However, my story starts four and a half months earlier during the main Blitz on Sheffield that took place in December 12 & 15, 1940.

Fearnehough Street was the home of my parents Hilda Julia and Frederick Marsh and my maternal grandmother Harriet Glesthorpe. My mother鈥檚 maiden name was Hanson not Glesthorpe, her father Fred had been killed in the First World War on July 01, 1916 during the first attack on the Somme, and her mother had later married again. My mother had been only seven years of age when her father was killed so there was no love lost on the Germans in our house.

My father鈥檚 occupation was Tool Hardener and he worked for Firth Brown Tools Limited a division of Thomas Firth and John Brown Ltd. This company, during the period of the war, produced over one million tons of high quality alloy steel and at the peak of production made a quarter of a million individual tools each week for the war effort. For this reason my father, in common with many steel workers, engineers and miners in the Sheffield area, was considered to have a reserved occupation vital to the war effort and so was not required to join the armed forces for active service.

I do not believe that he was happy in the job of Tool Hardener, that he continued until he eventually retired, because prior to the Second World War he had been a skilled Silversmith working for Walker and Hall. The requirement for Silversmiths between the wars had been greatly reduced by the introduction of Inheritance Tax and with it there was less demand for silverware for the tables of the rich and famous.

Our house at Fearnehough Street had been bombed in the blitz. My mother and father together with my grandmother, Harriet Glesthorpe with whom they lived were trapped in the cellar in which they had been sheltering. My grandmother, an imposing woman of 19 stones, had been the first to escape from the cellar and on reaching ground level she had found that there were three incendiary bombs in the house one of which it was alleged had entered by way of the chimney. She used a long steel rake to drag them out of the house. My mother, pregnant with me at the time, and father then escaped from the cellar. If the bombs had been high explosive and not incendiaries it is doubtful that they would have survived and I would never have been born to tell this story.

Phyllis Hopkins, my father鈥檚 youngest sister, who was living in Walkley at the time, had heard of the heavy bombing in the East End of Sheffield. Phyllis together with her daughter Patricia decided to see if her brothers and his family had suffered in the bombing and set off on a harrowing journey across the City. The electric tramcars were not running so were given a lift on the back of a lorry.

Because the house was left uninhabitable my mother and father together with Harriet Glesthorpe went to live with Phyllis and Tom Hopkins.

The family knew my grandmother by the pet name 鈥淎unt Hetty鈥�, Pat Hopkins was frightened of her. On one occasion Pat had cause the cat to get chewing gum on its tail. When Pat returned from school see was told of the chewing gum incident and Aunt Hetty told her that she had had to cut off the cat鈥檚 tail, which thankfully was not true.

The worst of the bombing was over and the house at Fearnehough Street had been made inhabitable again so the family returned home where I was born. I weighed in to the world at 13lbs and 8 ozs. (6kg) and if I had weighed half a pound more I would have weighed a Stone. I have been told that the doctor attending the birth was heard to make the statement, 鈥淭his baby has not grown to this birth weight on rations鈥�. I cried incessantly because my mother鈥檚 milk could not satisfy my hunger, so breast-feeding stopped and I was bottle-fed. If I still continued to cry after being fed my grandmother would cure this by giving me a drink in my bottle, which would be made up of whisky diluted with warm water.

After I was born we were provided with a Morrison Shelter, which was a steel table that had wire mesh around the legs that was used as an air raid shelter to protect me as a baby. Also a gas masks in which I could be laid. Later these were sent to London because it was said that they had more need of them.

During the war, following the registration of the birth, two very important documents were issued. One was your identity card; the number on this card indicated where you lived. If you moved house during the war you had to have a new identity card complete with a new number to show where you live, even if you moved to the next road. The authorities knew the codes on the card so could place you from this number. When the NHS started it was simple matter to use the identity card numbers as a medical card with the exception that these remain the same forever rather than changing the numbers when moving house.
The other document being the Rationing Book which contained the ration coupons or 鈥淧oints鈥� for food, sweets, and eventually clothes.

In 1942-43 the Ministry of Food allocated weekly rations as follows:
Bacon & Ham 鈥� 4oz
Meat 鈥� Approximately 1lb
Butter 鈥� 4oz
Cheese 鈥� 2oz - 8oz
Tea 鈥� 2oz
Sugar 鈥� 12oz
Margarine 鈥� 2oz
Milk 2 鈥� 3 pints
Eggs 鈥� 1 small egg every 4 weeks
Dried Eggs 鈥� 1 packet every 4 weeks
Sweets 鈥� 12 oz every 4 weeks

Both my mother and grandmother were excellent cooks and could produce a good meal from anything. Because of the food shortage my grandmother use to say that it was unpatriotic not to eat all your food at meal times and not leave a 鈥渟aucy plate鈥� as she called it. To this day I find it difficult to leave food on my plate and feel bad about it if I do. To anyone that filled their plates and then could not consume all the food my grandmother would have said, 鈥淵our eyes are bigger than your belly鈥�.

I do not know if it was because of the bombing at Fearnehough Street but we moved to 68 Station Road, Darnall, shortly after I was born. The house was in a block of four red brick built houses numbered 62, 64, 66 and 68, with grey slate roofs, very small gardens to the front and larger gardens to the rear, number 68 being at the top end of the block.

A wall divided numbers 64 and 66 running from the back of the houses along the back gardens to the block of four outside toilets (Water Closets) at the top of the gardens, a paraffin lamp was used in the winter to stop the water cistern from freezing.

Access to number 66 and 68 was through the wooden front gate of number 68 up the passageway at the side. The small front garden had a low red brick wall at the front to which the sneak of the wooden gate was fixed. This wall had coping stones into which holes had been drilled in the top for fixing ornamental steel railings. The railings were fixed in place with lead. However during the war these railings were sawn off close to the wall and donated to the scrap metal collection for the production of steel for the war effort.

It had a single story kitchen, a living/dining room with its Yorkshire range/coal fire, front room that was heated by a gas fire and was only used on Sundays or when visitors arrived, my mother and father slept in the front bedroom, my maternal grandmother slept in the back bedroom, I slept in the attic, we did not have a bathroom or piped hot water.

We entered the house through the kitchen door which had a device on the back that broke the electric circuit to the light bulb so that it went out when the door was opened this together with the black out curtain draped over the door was intended to prevent a light showing to the outside during the black out. We did not use the side door so that was not a problem. Every window in the house was fitted with black out curtains and the sky light in the attic roof was painted with thick black paint.

All the families gas masks, when not being carried, which was compulsory if you left the house, were stored on hooks on the back of the door that lead from the living room to the cellar head. The cellar head was a small area at the top of the stone steps that lead down into the cellar. The cellar head had shelves for storage and meat safe. The meat safe was a metal frame with wire mesh screening to stop files from getting to the meat. The cellar was located directly below the front room, and was primarily used for the storage of coal.

I had been provided with a Mickey Mouse gas mask and had to join the rest of the family in the Anderson air raid shelter when the Sirens gave the air raid warning. I can remember my grandmother telling me when I heard the siren that I had not to worry, as it is only the 鈥渁ll-clear鈥�.

The Anderson shelter was constructed from straight and curved sheets of corrugated metal. These sheets were known as corrugated iron but were actually made from steel.
The way that the shelter would be built was by first digging a hole large enough to place the shelter in and deep enough to bury it to half its height. This hole was usually dug in the back garden of the house in which you lived, as ours was, but any piece of spare ground would do. The sheets were then bolted together in the hole to make the hut shaped shelter with its curved roof. The soil from the hole would then be thrown over the hut roof to bury and to provide added protection from shrapnel and the blast of the bombs, but it could not withstand a direct hit. A pathway was dug down to the door of the shelter and placing sandbags around it further protected this doorway, which served as the entrance to the shelter. The shelter would have a wooden floor with bunks to sleep on but these conditions were not conducive to sleep.

Long after the war was over the sheets from old Anderson shelters would be advertised for sale second hand in the Sheffield Star for use in building outhouses or garden huts.

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