大象传媒

It was Thursday 12 Dec 1940 and (Uncle) Jack Walker was driving his tram along Pinstone St towards The Moor. At about 7 pm the haunting wail of the air raid sirens started. A few minutes later the German blitz of Sheffield began. Jack, along with hundreds of Sheffielders had taken refuge in any air raid shelter they could find. The Luftwaffe's primary target was Attercliffe Road, the hub of the steel industry, including the foundry which forged the Spitfire prop. blades. They got it wrong, confusing another long street called The Moor with the industrial East End. Sheffield's city centre was pounded incessantly for 9 hours with HE and incendiary bombs. Very few bombs landed on the East End and Sheffield's war machine rumbled on even as the heart of a proud city was ablaze. When the terror from the skies finally subsided, the people of Sheffield had to face up to another type of terror, a city centre ablaze, fire, smoke, falling masonry and streets full of rubble from collapsed buildings and burned out vehicles. People had to make their way home in the early hours through this lot, not knowing whether the bombers had really finished or not. Jack made his way along The Moor and Pinstone St. As he reached the bottom of Barker's Pool he came across Brown's jewellers. The windows had been blown out and there was gold, silver and diamond jewellery, watches and other goods scattered all around. Many was the time Uncle Jack told me he could have been the richest man in Sheffield, but then he could have been the richest dead man in Sheffield 5 seconds later. Looters would be shot on sight. He later learned that his tram was destroyed in the blitz. To get home he had to walk through the worst of the bomb damage which stretched from The Moor to High Street and down Angel Street. Meanwhile his brother in law was fighting the fires started by the incendiary bombs. Jack carried on driving trams during the whole of the war, moving onto buses when the trams went out of service. Although bus drivers were quite well paid compared to steelworkers, he lived a modest life in a council house until his death. He could have improved his life with a bag of stolen diamonds, a gold watch or two, it could have been so much better if he was that type of bloke, but he was a typical honest Sheffielder of the day and just walked straight past Brown's valuable jewellery. I might never have seen my Uncle Jack if he had picked up a few bits of jewellery. His grave in City Road cemetary would have read "Lost his life in the Sheffield blitz 12/12/1940".

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