大象传媒

By 23rd December 1940, we had learned to recognise the eccentric throb of a German intruder. The now-familiar sound was caused, according to those in the know, by 鈥榰n-synchronised engines鈥�, an explanation trustingly accepted by those of us who were less-technically gifted, so whenever the night sky yielded a sound that, today, might be compared to an off-balance spin-dryer, we would turn to each other and say 鈥淛erry鈥檚 over鈥�. And as, in our experience, Jerry鈥檚 business was not with us, we had long-ago crossed the anxiety threshold that might, once, have had us diving for shelter. Nevertheless, familiarity with the invisible foe, coupled with the occasional wail of a siren borne on the frosty air from such self-important and more likely targets as Bakewell, had not inured us to the sudden change in tension that was soon to precede 鈥榯he attack鈥�.
It was rumoured, too, that we were in a zone where the night-fighters operated, the significance of this being that fighter-targeted bombers were not too particular where they unloaded their ballast, so there was always the thought that we might cop it by accident rather than design.
Most old Youlgravians will have their own clear recollections of that particular evening. It was quite early, perhaps sevenish, and I was proceeding down New Road with my friend William, who had important business to conduct with the police. He had found on his way home from work in Bakewell 鈥� unlikely though it now seems 鈥� a sack of coal. (Who, with coal at 2/6d a hundredweight and in short supply, would lose a whole bag of it?) Well, of course, he was about to do his public duty and report it to the civil authority. This was a duty we all took very seriously, particularly where 鈥榝ifth-columnists鈥� and parachutists might be involved. We could hear overhead the constant drone of Daimler-Benz engines, or whatever powered the Heinkels and Dorniers that were heading for a glow in the sky that was, we rightly suspected, very bad news for Sheffield, when there was some warning 鈥� a sudden change in engine pitch or the beginning of a dive, perhaps? And there we were, tucked prone under the wall, before the scream of the bomb had barely started. The explosion when it came was not only the loudest bang I ever heard, it seemed to come from a matter of yards away. In fact, as I later learned, it dropped at Conksbury Farm a good half-mile away, and was followed by a cascade of sound like the rattle of falling debris.
As it happened, we were at the gate of my aunt鈥檚 house, and our first reaction was to dive indoors. I may be wrong but I have a vision of her heading for or emerging from the underside of the table. We didn鈥檛 stay. Outside again, we were amazed to find that the sun appeared to have come up in our brief absence and everywhere was suffused in a green light which, as someone later said 鈥測ou could read the newspaper by鈥� (not that many people, I imagine, were taking advantage of the opportunity) and which later experience told me had been generated by parachute flares.
We parted company, William heading for home in Main Street, I across the fields to Bradford, dodging and jinking as I ran, a clear target to the air gunner who had, without doubt, already picked me out for liquidation. It seemed a real threat at the time, although I doubt the Luftwaffe would have thought a schoolboy much of a target, even had the known his heart was set on joining the Royal Air Force.
Needless to say, my family were relieved to see me: we could now become refugees all together. Mother was distraught to think of all the poor people whose lives had been snuffed out so near to Christmas and, doubtless, many more about to follow. Christmas always added a special poignancy to Mother鈥檚 perception of personal tragedy; I think it was the thought of joyous preparations fated to remain forever unconsummated.
Youlgrave used to be a village with at least three nuclei, each defined by mutual association. I don鈥檛 know what the rest of the village did that night, but Bradford took to the hills 鈥� or, to be more accurate, the Coach Road. We took the cat, of course, and I remember my brother trying to turn back for the guinea pig but we hardened our collective hearts. Behind us the green glow faded to a fiery orange as Youlgrave went up in flames. Warsaw, Rotterdam, Coventry and now Youlgrave. Where would it end ?
It may have been our intention to seek shelter in the Coach Road caves. I don鈥檛 know, but in any case they were overcrowded before we got there, so we walked on, waiting for the Luftwaffe to flock in and administer the coup de grace. It didn鈥檛 happen. The fires died down of their own accord, darkness returned to the night sky and we turned for home, convincing ourselves, to be sure, that a familiar walk was all we鈥檇 ever intended.
Next day revealed all. In addition to the one HE bomb that had blasted a considerable crater in a field and exposed one or two farm buildings to the weather, a stick of at least 200 incendiary bombs 鈥� some said 2,000 鈥� had straddled the village and all but two of them had missed. One garden is said to have received as many as six and it was a poor household that didn鈥檛 have at least one for the family curriculum vitae.
The bungalows that were hit belonged to the Brassington brothers and, there, the fires were extinguished with minor damage. As these were the only drawbacks to an otherwise epic evening, it soon became a matter of modest pride that Youlgrave had met the full might of the Luftwaffe (well, almost) and triumphed. Hardly a mantelpiece in the village was without its spill-carrying tail-fin, carefully gleaned from the little piles of ashes and burnished with loving care. Nothing was wasted even though the gift may have been despatched with less-than-charitable intent.
What was never made clear, so far as I know, was the reason for the drama. Theories abounded, some still faithfully held. The night-fighter syndrome was popular as was the persuasion that somebody had been careless with lights, though I think it would have had to have been carelessness of a monumental proportion to pass for Sheffield. Less popular was the theory of fifth-column signalling gone wrong, yet it did have its firm adherents. The DP Battery Company making submarine batteries at Bakewell was a popular suspect and one possibility with sinister implications was the presence that very night of an ammunition train in transit at Rowsley sidings (however did they know?).
One theory was never mooted: Nobody suggested that a Heinkel (or whatever) had set course from, say, Abbeville to Youlgrave, with the express purpose of burning out the Brassington family. But, propaganda-wise, it was the only explanation from which Field Marshall Goering and his boys might have derived any operational credit. Significantly, Lord Haw-Haw had nothing to say on the matter.

So, against all the expectations of its neighbours who came next day to view the burnt-out shell, Youlgrave remained defiantly intact and getting on with the war. The farmers observed the dictates of the War Agricultural Committee and ploughed up their ten percent of virgin pasture to plant cereals and roots crops. Parties of children came from school to help harvest them and found it not to be quite the effortless skive from school they had expected. Everybody had something extra to spare from their day job to serve the war effort in one capacity or another and, mostly, it was without thought of recompense. Some had a statutory foundation, like the Auxiliary Fire Service; for others, like the Boy Scouts, it was a case of making yourself generally useful.

This story has been added to the site by Alison Tebbutt, Derby CSV Action Desk, on behalf of Norman Wilson and Andrew McCloy. The author has given his permission, and fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

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