大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Newcastle on behalf of Eleen Henry and has been added to the site with her permission. Eleen Henry fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

When the war started, when it was declared, I was listening to the radio. Churchill[Sic?] came on to say we are at war with Germany, That was 3rd September 1939 and we had been married, well, that was our first anniversary of my wedding. I was married September 3rd. 1938, so of course that was quite a start. Before that my husband went to sea, but when we were married he got a job here at home so he wasn't seafaring then. But of cause he wanted to go into the Navy when he was called up which he did. After training he was at Skegness, and then he went to Northern Island. Of course we hadn't any family then so I had to take a job. I was working at Bell Brothers in the office at North Shields. When he was over in Northern Ireland, he was at Larne first and the ship was the Nigranty, it was a converted yacht. He used to go three days out and three days in. I went over to Ireland just before Christmas time. It was terrible, the weather and everything, but it was my last chance. I remember my father saying "Well you can't go now ." I had to get the last train to Newcastle in order to get the train over to Ireland. We had a friend who was a skipper on the trawlers who had been called up, well he had a lot of brass. I was to meet with him and then he was going as far as Carlisle. He said "You travel with me." but he had a first class ticket and I just had a third class (I was hoping I'd get to travel first on the boat.) Anyway, I got in the first class, with this friend of mine and when they came around to check the tickets they said "Eh, your travailing first." but they didn't make any fuss about it. It was okay and I still stayed in there until I got on the ship. Before I left work to go over they said you must have some tablets or something, with the seasickness and all. Well I got on the ship and I said I wasn't feeling at all well and was feeling seasick, but I was told that the ship hadn't sailed yet. I felt so stupid that after that I didn't dare say a thing. My husband had a good laugh about that.

My husband seemed to be on leave a lot when the bombs were falling on North Shields. One time he'd went the next morning to get the buns for his breakfast. There had been a terrific raid that night. His Mother had a friend in Howdon and we were walking back to Percy Main where his mother lived (We lived in Stowman St, in Shields) and he says "Get down!" but there was no sine, there was nobody about, and he says it's the Germans. So we gets home to Stowman St. and the place, the church and everything, it was all in a right mess. We were allowed through because we lived there. Then I went to see my mother and she had no light on or anything so that was pretty drastic.

Of course there were lots of other things that happened to other people. My husband used to work with a chap who had four children. They lived in Tynemouth and he worked in the place where they mad the lemonade, Wilkinson. His wife and four children were killed when Wilkinson had got a direct hit. So I wasn't taking to any shelters after that. The one we had in Stowman St. was just a cover and that in the yard. Stuff would just go straight through. There was no shelter unless you went under the field. I was often on me own and things seemed fine, but my husband always seemed to be home when things were happening.

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