大象传媒

One of my older brothers, Walter, was 18 years older than myself, being born in 1918. He was in the army very early in the war and was evacuated from Dunkirk.

Walter was a time-served blacksmith. It was felt by the authorities that he could make a greater contribution to the war effort by working at his trade and so he was discharged from the army. He was engaged on 'war work' at a foundry in the Portrack area of Stockton.

Walter was married and living in Thornaby Place, the last house on the left and of a peculiar shape as it was built to fit in the narrowing gap between the road and the railway lines. It was a trapezium shape - and just across the railway, 30 or 40 yards from Thornaby Road.

It was night, the sirens had gone, in our Bickersteth Street home my parents had taken to the shelter and me with them of course. The sound of aircraft could be heard - there would be shrapnel to be picked up in the morning!

After a while there was the sound of an explosion near enough and loud enough to make the windows rattle and remarks such as "That was a big one" and "Some poor devil's copped it".

It was a further couple of hours before Walter turned up, on his bicycle, and covered in dirt and dust. The bomb we had heard had fallen in the Thornaby Road area where it had demolshed a pub, houses and brought loss of lives. This one and its statistics are well documented.

Walters house had lost much of its roof and windows and plaster, etc from its walls. He and his wife later moved to a house just on the other side of the road, this one I remember was 34 Thornaby Place and its garden ran down to the river.

In 1953 Walter and family all emigrated to Australia where they made a very succesfull life

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.