大象传媒

In 1940 I was just turned seven years old. Along with my younger brother, who was nearly five, we lived with our parents in Stretford, Manchester, in a typical 1930's semi-detached house.

Whilst we had the offer to share a neighbour's Anderson Shelter, my mother had no wish to leave her home until my father had returned from work. My father thus built his own form of shelter. He had filled a number of medium-sized wooden boxes with sand and placed them on the outside wall of the pantry, which was under the stairs.

My father was in a reserved occupation, being involved with the safe storage and distribution of food. His work often required him to work quite late. On 7th October 1940 he was working late. The air-raid sirens had already sounded about 8 o'clock and as the buses had stopped running, my father arrived home later than usual.

Father was a creature of habit in that when he came home the first thing he did was to change from his shoes into his slippers and then go upstairs to the bathroom for a quick wash before having his evening meal. It was about 8.50pm when he got in. He changed his shoes, putting on his slippers and was just about to go upstairs when he had a change of mind and decided to come and sit with us. All four of us were sitting on the floor in the pantry.

At 8.57pm we heard the sound of an aircraft, followed by the scream of a bomb as it hurtled to the ground.

Then.....the world stopped.

There was no sound.....time stood still.

At 8.58pm, behind our kitchen, which had a ceiling, there was a washhouse and behind that a coalhouse full of coal.

At 8.58 and 10 seconds the coalhouse, the washhouse, the kitchen and what was once our bedroom and bathroom disappeared. We were now looking at the stars and a mound of bricks.

The blast from the bomb had stopped some six or so inches from our feet. We were totally untouched, other than my brother who was complaining that dust from the ceiling had fallen on him. My father's first reaction was, once he realised we were all safe, was to go looking for his outdoor shoes to change out of his slippers.

Our next door neighbours had an Anderson Shelter in their back garden. Regrettably two of the family were killed. For my brother and I it was just an exciting experience, but it had a profound effect upon my mother. More so because the next day her younger brother was killed when the ship he was working on in Dover was hit in a bombing raid.

By Christmas 1940 we were living in a rented house and on Boxing Day there was another major air-raid which lasted something like ten hours. Whilst this house was not hit, on this occasion we spent most of the night feeling the vibrations of nearby hits, as our floorboards were continually going up and down.

As soon it was light enough my mother said that there would be another raid that night, so we packed up and went to live with an uncle on the borders of Cheshire and Derbyshire. True enough, there was a raid that night and the two houses at the back of our rented house were hit and all the windows in ours were blown out. Fortunately we found a family who lived near my uncle who were prepared to take us in for the next year or so, by which time the worst of the blitz had ended. Then we returned to Stretford.

As children we now had to learn to cope with the V1's and V2's in that we carried on playing as long as we could hear the engines of these "flying bombs". You ony had to worry when the engine stopped. We just stood until we heard the explosion and as long as it sounded to have been some distance away, we resumed whatever we were doing.

In those days you never heard any child complain that they were bored!

(PK)

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