大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Enza Stellato on behalf of Ernest Pearson and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was working in a cotton mill Christy's in Droylsden when war broke out. I was called up at 18, but was exempt because the factory was making towels for the navy (white towels) and the army (jungle freen towels). I volunteered for the Auxilliary Fire Service in Droylsden. We had a uniform and special gas mask, which was different from the civilian one, and we wore a steel helmet.

We used fire pumps, which were pulled around by big old American cars. We never came into Manchester centre during the blitz. I was a messanger and I travelled about on a bike carrying messages if the radios weren't working.
I also had to do a spell of firewatch duty, but did not see any major fires. At the beginning af the war if the air-raid siren sounded it couldn't be heard bacuse of the noise of the machinery so someone came round sounding a whistle and we had to evacuate the mill, go to the air-raid shelters. Later, because there were no incidentswhen the siren went off, people would go on to the mill roof and survey the area with binoculars. The mills could signal to one another if there was any danger and then the workers woul dgo to the shelter so that production could be kept going.

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