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Wartime Salford memories by Enid Pomphret recorded by Pamela Brown.

At the beginning of the war there was no school for some time because so many teachers had gone to the war. Everyone thought dreadful things would happen straight away and my mother took me to the Lake District for 3 weeks. When we came back school had started again.

There is a war memorial near Tib Street which is very poignant to me. My father worked at J & M Philips in Canon St. He often brought friends home to eat their lunch and one of these was someone they called ‘young Noels’ ( don’t remember his second name) At some stage young Noels was called up to the Air Force and went for training in Blackpool.
On his leave before starting flying he came home to our house at lunchtime. As they were leaving he reached out and put half a crown in my hand. My father tried to stop him, and I can still see him brushing my father’s restraining hand aside and saying “ you must let me I may never be able to do it again.
The reason I remember this so clearly is that he was killed on his very first flight a few days later. Young Noel’s name is the first one on the second plaque of the war memorial. At one time it was the very first name until it was realised that they had put the plaques the wrong way round!

I can remember seeing the sky blood red over the city and thinking ‘My daddy is in there’. Luckily for us he always came home safe.
The guns used to be fired from the backs of lorries going up and down Eccles Old Road.

On one occasion my parents left us for a short while saying to go down to the Anderson Shelter the moment the siren sounded. The shelter was a bit damp and so we kept a pile of blankets in the kitchen to grab on our way out. This time the siren went and I grabbed a blanket only to find when I was in the shelter that it was full of holes! It was the blanket my mother used to do the ironing and it was definitely on its last legs….I was very cold that night!

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