大象传媒

My Mum by Andy Forster

Born in 1927, 13/14 during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz (Lightning in German). Her father (too young for WW1, too old for WW2) was a Sector Captain in the Fire Watch. Their job was to watch for fires starting and direct the fire service to put them out. This required reliable messengers, and my Mum took this job! She loved riding round North Hull on her bike, in her tin hat and carrying her gas mask, skirting round bomb craters and wishing good-night to the courting couples! The streets and tenfoots were pitch black, and she could hear the bombs falling. Occasionally she would turn a corner to see a friend鈥檚 house completely destroyed. The next morning there would be an empty desk at school.

Each evening everyone would listen to the 大象传媒 News on the radio in the Air Raid Shelter, with Alvar Liddell reading it. The days told of our planes lost, enemy aircraft destroyed and pilots (ours) saved was read out, like a cricket score. The numbers weren鈥檛 entirely accurate, nor were the descriptions of heavy enemy raids on London, Liverpool, Coventry and a North East Coast Town (Hull).

Hull was unlucky in several ways. Firstly, it was easy to find from the air at the confluence of Rivers Hull and Humber. German planes flying in from Denmark & Norway could also find Hull easily by day (head for Flamborough Head and turn left).

Secondly, the Germans were under the mistaken impression that Ideal Standard was a Spitfire factory. Whether this was a mistake or a piece of MI5/6 miss-information to protect the real factories in West Bromwich & Southampton is unlikely to be ever made public.

Anyway, the result was a lot of bombing! An enormous bomb fell in Kenilworth Ave., a huge piece of shrapnel crashing through the front window of No. 94. My granddad kept this in the shed until he died in 1984. A whole stick of bombs fell across Cottingham Road, from the flats across into Newland Park. There is still a big bump in the road today, an enormous ridge going right across both sides just near the entrance to Newland Park.

As the war progressed, the Blitz eased off a little. A newspaper produced a map of Europe and North Africa together with coloured pins, and millions of school kids spent evenings listening to the news and plotting Rommel鈥檚 advance, then Monty鈥檚 advance, the war on the Russian Front and learning geography at the same time (Tobruk, Stalingrad, El Alamein, later on Normandy, Caen, Arnhem and The Ardennes Forest).

The war turned in our favour, and we started to launch the 鈥淭housand Bomber Raids鈥� against Germany. Many of the bomber bases were in Lincolnshire, East Yorkshire (Driffield, Elvington, Catwick, etc.) and the North of England, and their route across to Germany took them directly over 94 Kenilworth Avenue! My Mum would lie awake for what seemed like hours as the enormous 鈥渁erial armada鈥� flew over, engines droning, the house shaking and windows rattling.

Six or seven hours later, between going to school and lunchtime, they would return in ones and twos, some damaged and on fire, limping back to base and breakfast. And 10% didn鈥檛 come back at all.

One day my mum鈥檚 best friend received the news that her elder brother鈥檚 Lancaster had been shot down over Holland and was buried 50ft underground. There were no survivors and the plane would never be recovered (it was, years later).

1944 and 1945 saw the V1 and V2 rockets (Doodle Bugs) being launched on Hull. They whistled while flying along, then the whistling would stop and the flying bomb would fall steeply to earth. 鈥淪o long as you could hear the whistling, you were OK鈥�.

The end of the war was both wonderful and sad. Wonderful that it was over and 鈥渢he lights could go on again鈥�, sad for those who hadn鈥檛 survived. Lasting effects? An addiction to the news and remembered snatches of old poems and songs (they were used and read out at the end of the 大象传媒 News each evening as 鈥渕essages for resistance forces in Occupied Europe鈥�, the code for 鈥淭his is D-Day鈥�, for example being 鈥淲ounds my heart with a monotonous languor鈥�.

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Transcribed by C. Brigham www.Hullwebs.co.uk

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