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15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

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Contributed by听
Wakefield Libraries & Information Services
People in story:听
Bill Wood;
Location of story:听
Airedale; Castleford;Pollington; Pontefract; Thorpe Arch; West Yorkshire
Background to story:听
Civilian
Article ID:听
A7447269
Contributed on:听
01 December 2005

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Christine Wadsworth of Wakefield Libraries and Information Services on behalf of Bill Wood and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was 14 years old in September 1939 and working in Batten鈥檚 cycle shop near the top of Gillygate, Pontefract, repairing cycles and taking over the shop when needed. I鈥檇 been on holiday and when I came back my job wasn鈥檛 very secure as cycles were in short supply after six months of war. They鈥檇 started to give gas masks out and people kept coming into the shop asking for gas mask cases 鈥 we didn鈥檛 even sell them! I'd worked there for about eight or nine months when Mr Batten found that it wasn't viable with bikes being so hard to get. With things being so difficult Mr Batten gave up the Pontefract shop and just kept the one that he had in Castleford. I actually sold the last bike that we had in the shop 鈥 it was the best one and the most expensive at 拢9.50 鈥 he couldn鈥檛 believe that I'd managed to sell it!

My next job was in Armley, Leeds, working for Wilson Mattison鈥檚 Sheetmetals, who made New World cookers and such. They started making small baths which the troops used for peeling potatoes in and also supplied chemical latrines for the Services, then shells and small grenades. I worked there for eighteen months and enjoyed it, but I lived in Airedale near Castleford and had to get up very early to start out at 6am, get to Holbeck, then get the tram for a half penny ride to Armley ready to start work at 7.30am. It was even worse in winter, I was getting up at 5am and not getting to work until 9am. My Dad, who was a deputy at Wheldale Colliery was fed up with this so he called into Wheldale Colliery fitting shop and got me a job at the colliery.

I went to Wheldale as a lad and worked in the locomotive shed fitting shops for three or four months until someone finished and I became the striker for a blacksmith called Stan Brook. It was about that time that they started bombing Leeds and I saw helmets and gasmasks stuck on nails in the walls of the shop. I worked on shifts - days and afternoons 鈥 and if the sirens ( situated at the colliery ) went I had to go into a shelter which had been built on the headgear and fire watch. If enemy action came too near Wheldale, I had to shout down a long tube which went straight down to the banksman, so that he could secure the men and the cage. One night the siren went between 8.30 and 9pm and two of us struggled up No. 2 headgear鈥檚 uneven steps in the blackout with our helmets 鈥 I was scared ! An hour later we could see activity, flames, in the distance but nothing came anywhere near. At 10.30pm the banksman shouted up that we could go home. On the way home I met GS who was also on his way home and very drunk. I got home and went to bed and then about one hour later the sirens went and half a dozen incendiary bombs fell between our back garden and GS鈥檚. GS was the first man there with sandbags 鈥 he had sobered up instantly!

Later on in the war every man over sixteen or seventeen had to spend one night a week fire watching. We got no pay for doing this but we did get a food allowance. We met in the colliery lecture room which was above the plant records office. This was later made into the control room with monitors for keeping an eye on the coal transfer point, ventilation fans, underground auxiliary and main fans in the powerhouse in case they overheated, etc.

After Dunkirk started, soldiers of the London Regiment came to stay in Airedale and were billeted with families and I remember that they seemed to be very lonely blokes. Peter, my cousin鈥檚 husband recalls that his aunt told him that one of the billeting officers walked down Royd鈥檚 Avenue where his parents and aunt lived, knocking at the doors of all the parlour houses like theirs to ask if soldiers could be billeted there. His auntie kept in touch with one of the soldiers who billeted with them and he called back to see them after the war. The soldiers were there quite a while. Twelve soldiers were billeted in Knottingley Town Hall, one of them woke up and tragically fell out of a window and was killed.

When our Anderson Shelter had been delivered we managed to dig down four feet 鈥攚e all had a go at it 鈥 but then hit limestone and couldn鈥檛 get any further, so we heaped soil over the top of it to cover it up. I was only in the shelter three times. The first time, the sirens went one Sunday night and although it was a mistake no one realised it so everyone piled down to the shelter at 1am in the morning. It was cold and damp down there so I asked my mother not to call me up the next time the siren went.

When Castleford was bombed one man was killed as he stepped out of his shelter and an incendiary hit him on his head. The next day, a Saturday, SB was late coming in to work. He lived on Brookfield Avenue and had been bombed out.

After a particularly bad raid in Leeds, I and a friend, Ken, got on our bikes to cycle to Leeds. We got as far as Hunslet and the police turned us back.

There was a bad accident down Wheldale Colliery, two men were killed and three badly injured. My father had to supervise getting them out. He was pressurised by people asking 鈥淲hat about the other two鈥 鈥攖he two who had been killed, but he had to concentrate on those injured. What he had to do got to him and left him shell-shocked so he got out of the pit.

For three or four years, my mother worked in the canteen at Thorpe Arch Munitions, near Wetherby. Many people in Airedale and Castleford worked in munitions and a special bus picked them up early morning to take them into work. My father got a job there as a caterer, then went to work for the gas board as many men had been called up and their jobs needed filling.

We grew veg - carrots and such - in our garden. My Uncle Dick who lived in Hunt Street, had an allotment over Lock Lane,at the end of Mill Lane, opposite the church, where he also kept chickens, so we had eggs and in summer he supplied us with tomatoes. We never went hungry. Lock Lane was the last place in Castleford to have electricity and at that time they still had earth closets.

I remember being down the yard at Wheldale at about 10 or 11am, watching our planes coming back in to Pollington Airfield, some with smoke coming out of them. We all used to cheer them in! I鈥檇 been on a bus at the same time as pilots returning to their billets and heard them say 鈥 F for Freddy didn鈥檛 come back last night鈥. My friend Ken M鈥檚 uncle lived in Snaith. He was a full time Special Constable and patrolled Pollington Airfield where he saw planes limping home, get back to the air field then crash 鈥 it broke his heart! Ken and I were going there early one morning on the road that went right around the airfield when all of a sudden a big Lancaster loomed up and we ended up on the floor. We were scared to death! They later closed that road and made everyone use the road through the village instead.

My mother鈥檚 brother, my Uncle Arthur, was fighting in France. He had been a career soldier in the Army before the war. After Dunkirk we hadn鈥檛 heard anything from him and my mother was really nattered about this. Six weeks later he came home, they had bypassed Dunkirk, gone to Boulogne and got picked up there. He brought home a sack of American cigarettes, Raleighs. He also served in India and they said that the heat and conditions badly affected and unsettled him. He went all through the war, but afterwards he could never settle at home. He moved in with my mother, but couldn't get on with grandad, his father, who also lived with us. Later on in his life Uncle Arthur became a wanderer and tragically burned to death whilst sleeping rough in a barn.

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