大象传媒

I was always told that the bombs fell on Trafford road Eccles on December 20th 1940. Reading other contributions of the Manchester Blitz I now think it must have been on the night of December 22nd. 1940. Perhaps someone who reads this can confirm the date.
My Dad, Fred Crawford had a grocers shop at 180 Trafford Road Eccles, this was were we lived. The property was badly damaged by a landmine that exploded just a few feet from the front door.
I was asleep on a bed made out of biscuit tins and a matress that was in the small space under the stairs. The fallen rubble trapped us (the daughter of Jack Jolly the barber from next door shared this space with me).
The next thing I remember was the ARP wardens clearing the fallen bricks rubble and doors away and pulling us out. It was dark and raining outside, and they had to take us across Trafford road to a large public air raid shelter. As the enemy planes came down low the ARP man who was carrying me, pushed me down onto the road and laid on top of me. I can still remember the feel of the rough blue serge of his overcoat on my face, and the damp and unusual smell of the wet serge. We eventually got into the shelter which was packed with people. My older sister Olive was leading the hynm singing, she had a very strong suprano voice. Blankets were wrapped around us and very strong tea was passed round in mugs.
How long we stayed in the shelter, I am not sure, but the next thing that I remember was sitting on the 'slop stone' draining board in my fathers housekeepers kitchen in Patricroft, Mrs Mottram was her name. She was washing me and getting dust and dirt out of my eyes.
I stayed with Mrs. Mottram for a few days, and was then passed around various relatives in Northenden, south Manchester. At the house of my aunt and uncle in Lingard Road when the sirens went we sat on the cellar steps all night. Later on we got an Anderson shelter in the garden, we spent many nights in this shelter. My uncle Charlie (who had spent many months in the trenches in the first world war) would not come down into the shelter he sat by the entrance shouting down what was going on. 'The searchlights are on, The ack-ack is firing, there are planes overhead, I think they are ours'. Years later uncle Charlie told me why he did not come down into the shelter with us, he explained it brought back dreadful memories of the trenches and dug-outs he had lived in for three years in France.
When the bombing over Manchester became an everynight occurance it was decided to evacuate my gandma and me (the oldest and youngest in the family). We eventually arrived at a very primative lean-to farm workers cottage at a place called Gollin Gate, between Leek and Buxton in Derbyshire. The farm belonged to the Milners. I spent the rest of the war playing around the fields and streams of this remote area, only 35 miles from the centre of Manchester. The people on the Derbyshire moorlands were hardly affected by the war, no air raid sirens, only the odd plane overhead, usually one of our bombers returning to Ringway (now Manchester airport). No real restriction of rationing, the farms were self sufficient and exchanged and shared what they had. I went into the fields and collected young nettle leaves, which my Grandma cooked as a vegetable, made nettle tea, and nettle beer.
My Gandma read me all the adventure stories from the old testement, David and Golliath, David in the Lions den, she seemed to know where to find stories that were interesting to an imaginative young boy. Also I got to know Pilgrims Progress pretty well, this was read to me many times over. What effect this limited literary diet had on me I am not sure.
I stayed in Gollin Gate until the end of 1943, which meant that I did not go to school until I was seven years old. Now in my 69th. year I am still catching up.
There are several very strange co-incidences realted to my stay in Gollin Gate which I will relate as a sequel.

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