大象传媒

Although, 5yrs old,I cannot remember the start of the war.
May 28th 1941, I remember well for, arriving home from school, I found a bicycle outside my home and inside a nurse holding a newborn baby.
For ages afterwards I really believed the nurse had brought her in the case on the back of the cycle!
That week there were raids on two nights and my Great Auntie, who was looking after my older sister, my brother and myself, we slept in the cleaned out coalhouse under the stairs. However, the third night there was a heavy raid and Dad rushed home from his air raid warden post (not actually allowed), to rush us into the Anderson Shelter. Auntie, praying as usual, did rush but reluctantly we children wanted to linger and watch the searchlights and listen to the explosions. Auntie opened the door and pulled us inside and slammed it just as Dad handed the baby to us.
鈥淚鈥檝e killed her鈥� he cried, as he rammed into the door.

Those words echo in my mind even today. He had not, just bruised her forehead.
Incredibly we were excited to see bombed buildings and be able to look for treasure i.e. shrapnel. I particularly remember some houses near 5th Ave School, for the front of the whole block had been blown out and I could see a lovely dolls pram in one bedroom. I actually envied that child.

As kids we were never bored. Sometimes we鈥檇 sit on our front gate at 43 York Road and asked the GI鈥檚 who passed from Cottingham,
鈥淗ave you got any gum Chum?鈥�
Hours were spent playing at the decontamination centre at the back of houses opposite. We鈥檇 play cooking in the huge iron bowls set on bricks, using petals, mud and water. By the time my youngest sister was 2yrs old she could say 鈥渄econtamination鈥�, so often we said we were going there.

Dad made us toys from scrap wood and we鈥檇 take our bogie cart to Tarran鈥檚 factory at the end of York Road and we were able to go among the machines and collect off cuts, they were also used to keep our fire going when the week鈥檚 coal ran out.

Margarine was always in short supply, four kids can eat a lot of bread and butter, sometimes with cocoa and condensed milk mixed together, on it. So we swapped tea for margarine with a family at number 39. This act was illegal and I was always worried that my parents would go to jail.

We were very lucky, we were not bombed out, I remember though a bomber landing on the houses in Silverdale Road, Beverley High Road. When we heard we dashed there and returned triumphantly with a small piece of fuselage.

One war effort we did was a concert in our garden for neighbours. We鈥檇 seen wonderful concerts (in our eyes) at the Social Hall put on by Mrs Thustle. My sisters and I tried to emulate them. They must have been awful for I remember that my Mum made my fairy outfit from an underskirt with a layer of medical gauze sewn over the bottom, supposedly as a tutu. However the audience paid and more money was raised by Mum making watery, orange drinks, using clinic orange juice.

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