大象传媒

When war broke out I was ten years old (28th June 1929). I can remember everyone listening to the radio and being quite excited at the thought and being told to get my brother home, fully expecting bombing to start immediately.

There must have been some kind of preparation for war because my youngest brother when a baby was fitted into a huge gas mask that he lay in, and there were sandbags being filled, and I am sure we practised going into shelters under the hill on Greens Place. It was very dark and water underneath the planks of wood we stood on the benches was very cold. We lived just above the river opposite the fish quay, and my father and all his family were on the trawlers. I remember all the ships that came in and taken over by the army and we had to join the boys. A lot of the children had been evacuated so we went to St. Hilda鈥檚 school either in the morning or afternoon and sometimes we had a lesson in the air raid shelter under the market. However not much was happening. My uncles who were in the RNR had gone away and my father shelters in the back yards, and we decided to go down the street to join my grandma and Granddad in their shelter.

When the air raids became more frequent, on the siren going Mom would pick up the baby (now about 18 month) I would carry the handbag with all the money and documents etc. and my eldest brother would drag the middle brother along to Grandmas shelter, sometimes Granddad was on plane spotting and we would sit there until the all clear went, grandma only coming in if it got really serious. We heard of one or two friends being bombed our, but we enjoyed scrapping around down below and on the hill for our shrapnel collection. My brother once had a spectacular find which he kept in his drawer and it was only when my father came home on leave that we discovered it was a live incendiary bomb, which they took to the police.

As the bombing became every night, we were hardly at school and it was decided that we would be evacuated. So Alt, Wilf and I were taken to the railway station where we were separated. Wilf who was only four and a half screaming because he wanted to be with me, he ended up in Aspatria and I didn鈥檛 see him again until he was eight. Alf and I were sent to Cumberland, Frizington and Cleator.

I was exceptionally lucky. I was taken in by Mr. and Mrs Tindall, she was elderly and a WVS lady, and he was a retired tin miner. They also had two daughters Margaret 28 and Mary 33 years old. I had a small room at the front to myself with a beautiful view of a mountain. They had a huge garden and Mr. Tindall grew all his own vegetable and kept chickens. I was never wanted for a thing, in fact they spoiled me. Mrs. Tindall used to make a lovely plate pies for me and barley and raisin puddings, the only food I missed was fish. Alf wasn鈥檛 so lucky, the home he was in he had to share a bed with a younger child who wet himself, he was very unhappy and after about two month, after receiving a letter from my mom I walked the three miles to see him and brought him back. He was taken in by a friend of Mrs Tindall but he didn鈥檛 settle so after six month away he was back home. I stayed away for just over two years, my mother brining me home to help her. While I was away Shields took a lot of bombing and our home above the river was damaged and the family had to go and stay with an aunt in Burnopfield, gran and granddad too. In the mean time my father had been sent to Mombasa, after his spell at boom defence on a trawler at Rosyth. I used to get air mail letters from him and was able to follow his time abroad on a map. I know he was in Trincomolee and was for a time in hospital, but never knew why. He seemed to be working between Mombasa and Ceylon, but he must have been home on leave in 1043 sometime, and then posted back to Africa.
I enjoyed school, when we were there, with only two teachers and children scattered all over, often bad weather closed the school and when it got warmer flooding closed the school again. I was left very much to my own device being given maths. English books which I worked through on my own. What education I had in South Shields prior to evacuation was very good as I was way ahead of everyone else. I was nearly 14 when I returned home, I sat an exam and was sent to St. John鈥檚 for a two year secretarial education.

1944 there were much fewer air raids, but I remember June 3rd around two running with my brother on a very full moon evening to get the midwife, hoping and praying the sirens wouldn鈥檛 go. My baby sister was born, then all the excitement of D day etc.

the very last aeroplane raid in the country took place in South Shields (recorded in a history of the town). What is not know was it came down the river from the pires and machine gunned us as we ran along to grandma鈥檚 and the brickwork just above our door had bullet holes in it, turned back at Tyne Dock area and flew out again to the sea. My war ended with watching the news at the cinema and the wireless and reading about it.

My grandmother and grandfather must have a terrible time. They has one son on the trawlers, one son in the shipyards, four sons away in minesweepers (trawlers), sons-in law at sea, grandsons in the merchant navy, one grandson prisoner of war, granddaughters in the WAAF at ATS. My dad ended up in hospital, uncle Sam was sunk three times (mined and bombed), Sam, Sid and George all served in North Africa, but apart from Sam having a bad leg and pension they all survived. However their service left them all with problems, which meant when they went back to fishing they had to take retirement earlier than expected and find some employment on the river.

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