大象传媒

War was declared on the 3rd of September 1939 and 22 days later it was my 12th birthday.
At this time my family lived at 52 Marlborough Terrace,Hull which stretched from the corner of Beverley Road to Russell Street, and our house was next door to Armstrongs Furniture Factory with only a narrow passage that led to Evander Terrace separating us.
I attended Blundell Street School at the time and remember just prior to this sitting in Mr Whincups class looking out of the window that overlooked Blundell Street and watching the first Barrage balloon in Hull being tested which was stationed on the Corporation Field and going up and then being lowered.
Air Raid shelters had been dug in Queens Gardens but these kept flooding, and opposite our house which is now the Norfolk Street Estate was an empty slum clearance site stretching from Russell Street (Wellington Inn still stands) to a row of shops fronting Beverley Road to Worsley Street and then Cussons Shops from Worsley street to Norfolk Street and the Bakery just behind them in Norfolk Street, next door to that was the Norfolk Street Police Station which is now the Blue Lamp Club. On this site they built 4 wooden Air Raid Shelters along side each other and covered them with sand bags. Needless to say everybody of my age played on them, jumping from one to another and we were always being chased off by the Police. Later these were dismantled and the R A F came and installed a Barrage Balloon on the site.
When the Germans started their air raids we all then went into the Moors and Robson Brewery cellars down Raywell Street and often came out after a raid to learn that the Barrage Balloon had been shot down.
My parents then had myself and two brothers evacuated to Moorends, near ThorneWe were billetted with a very nice mining family Mr and Mrs Lancaster, who had two sons one of which worked down the pit and the other was the same age as myself, but we only stayed there for approx 1 year then we came home again. During our absence the Germans firebombed Armstrongs factory and my parents had to move and took a house in Stafford Street, off Harley Street.
Down Stafford Street two long Brick Air Raid Shelters had been built down the right hand side of the Street these were each divided into two halves with rows of 2 tier wooden bunks inside along side each wall, and when the Air Raid siren alarm went everybody dived inside for the night. Clifton Street School also had some of this type of air raid shelter in the girls playground around the perimeter. Very early in the war one or two Air Raids in which incendiary bombs were dropped along with High explosive bombs resulted in Bennett鈥檚 Chemist at the corner of Brunswick Ave and Waterloo Street being burnt out.
There was a big empty house at the corner of Harley Street were the Salvation Army now have a building which used to be Hockneys, this along with a Doctors Surgery and a couple of large houses fronting Beverley Road in which some people were killed were bombed very early. When the site was cleared the local authority鈥檚 put a big static water tank on the site and we used to swim in it then get chased away by the police.
Then came the Blitz and after a sleepless night I along and with some friends we went looking at the damage that had been wrought on Prospect and King Edward Street, looking for and collecting shrapnel on the way.
Following this Bombs were being dropped all a round us, my Grandmother was bombed out in Green Lane,when she lived in Seddon Terrace, she then moved to Cave Street and was also bombed out there.
My Aunt Millie lived in St Paul鈥檚 Street opposite were the Land mine fell and they were still in the house when it fell but in the Gas Cupboard under the stairs, her house was so badly damaged and it was eventually demolished.
Some other people named Hewitt from Wincolmlee who were bombed out in the blitz when Hamilton鈥檚 Oil depot at the bottom of Sculcoates Bridge was bombed, they lived directly opposite the depot in Wincolmlee and finished up with oil drums in their bedrooms which had been blown through the windows, they then moved into Stafford Street, 2 of the brothers Wilf And Dennis quickly became our pals and along with the Palmers, Dennis and Jimmy and Arnold who were round about my age group, and a lad called Benny Rowbottom who all lived down Stafford Street at the time.
After the Blitz the Germans still came over and bombed the City at very regular intervals, in fact almost every night, I remember a Bomb being dropped on Clifton Street, and little Brunswick Ave just passed the Brunswick Club and on one memorable occasion on Providence Row which was just behind our house before we could get to the Air Raid Shelter, the kitchen door was blown off and hit me on the head, all the back windows were blown in, luckily nobody was really hurt but it gave us a real fright. Although it was not funny at the time we all had a real good laugh at Wilf Hewitts mother Mrs Hewitt who was a rather stout lady, as she was going into the shelter the same bomb blew the Shelter door off and she was blown off her feet and was underneath it, everybody was running into the shelter over the door with poor Mrs Hewitt underneath but luckily she was unhurt.
By this time I had left school and had started work at 14 at the Kingston Box Mills in Campbell Street for 18 shillings per week, I was working there for a few months when I was offered a job at Henri,s Patent Cattle Feed Co down Northumberland Ave for 25 shillings a week, but this didn鈥檛 last too long and I then got a job at Woods Timber Mill down Hyperion Street.
I then saw the rest of the war out there doing the odd stint of Fire Watching whilst the Germans were still bombing us until I was called up in 1945 to do my National Service. My initial training was with the Green Howard鈥檚 at Gallowgate Camp, Richmond, from there I went to Cirencester for further training and passed a Trade test to become a Supply Storeman in the
R A S C which gave me an extra shilling per week, and after some further hands on training,after a short spell at Wellington, in Shropshire I was sent to Klagenfurt in Austria were I served for just over two years supplying rations for all the Army and R A F units in southern Austria, finally being demobbed in April 1948.

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