大象传媒

In 1942 we eventually moved to rented accommodation at 21 Lowton Avenue, Moston. My auntie Agnes and Family were already living at number 25 and she knew that the people in 21 were to vacate the premises soon, she also knew that it had a bathroom with a bath and a cistern for hot water; and so she had a word with the rent collector and in no time were moved in. Unfortunately for us the previous owner had kept her coal in the bath so it was filthy. We cleaned it as best we could but to no avail and so eventually my father painted it. There were unfortunate consequences to this as for years after the paint would become sticky with the heat of the water and leave white marks all over you, particularly on your bottom.
We may have had our own home but we spent any hours in the air raid shelter at the bottom of the street. Often I would be woken and taken to the shelter in the middle of the night amidst the roar of the planes above and the bombs exploding in the distance. Sometimes I would be put to bed fully dressed in anticipation of a raid. We were all issued with gad masks and I had also been issued with a new baby sister, Pauline. Her gas mask was different to standard issue and was known as a 鈥楳icky Mouse鈥� mask and it more or less covered the entire baby.
When the air-raid sirens sounded we went to the communal shelter at the end of the street but some families had brick shelters in their back yards and others had Anderson shelters in their front rooms or as we called them 鈥� parlours. The air raids were terrifying and for years after the war my mother and I could be found hiding on the stairs whenever there was an electrical storm. The thunder sounding too like the bombs we had heard dropping on Manchester.
When I was eight or nine I remember a bomb exploding on the wasteland, that was to later become known as the tip, between our street and Monsall hospital but it was more likely that the pilot was dumping his remaining bombs after a raid on Manchester or the docks. My cousin Tom found some shrapnel in the light fitting of their front room. Nobody could work out how it got there but he was more than pleased as boys collected such things at the time.
There wasn鈥檛 much in the way of toys or sweets and so we played our games with whatever was available. Sweets were rationed but some shopkeepers would let us have them in advance and we would owe them our coupons from the ration books. Another alternative was that our mothers would mix some coca and sugar on a plate or in a twist of paper and we would make do with that, and at other times we were given an oxo cube to suck on.
There was a shop on Brantwood Terrace owned by a Mr Garnet and he sold liquorice sticks which weren鈥檛 rationed but tasted like twigs.
I remember a friend of mine, Sandra Yarr eating a bag of Victory V鈥檚 at school; these were throat lozenges popular at the time and still available now but with a difference. In those days they contained chloroform and she 鈥榗onked out鈥� and had to be taken home after falling asleep in the middle of the class. This could possibly have happened just after the war as rationing went on up to 1955.
Towards the end of the war my father got a job with the CWS. Fruit was becoming available again and they helped distribute it. When they got paid their wages on Friday they were given as a bonus a basket of fruit to take home. For many children this was their first sight or taste of a banana and I remember my sister Pauline鈥檚 reaction. She was about three or four at the time, and she took one look and said, 鈥淚鈥檓 not eating those big yellow carrots鈥�. Of course we overcame our fears and found that they actually tasted nice, and after the war children ate fruit in the same way that today鈥檚 children now eat sweets and fast foods.
In the war years coal was in short supply and the wasteland known as the 鈥榯ip鈥� was covered in coke that had been dumped there. Coke made a good fire but I detested the smell of it when we had to use it, nevertheless people came from miles around to collect it in buckets. We as is the way with children were as proud of living next door to the tip as if we owned our own goldmine.

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