大象传媒

I left Blackburn at the age of seven to go living in Blackpool, mainly because there were very few jobs to be had, and things were hard in Blackburn in 1933. Fortunately, my sister was a sewing machinist and was able to get a job in Blackpool. I lived there for three years, and after my sister Nellie got married I went living with Nellie and her husband at Glossop.

I really enjoyed this, and used to go for long walks on the surrounding moors. When Nellie's husband, Charlie, was called into the Army in 1939 we moved back to Blackpool and I rejoined my Mother, who had been in domestic service.

I remember the blackouts of the street lights and the subdued lighting on the vehicles, and I remember knocking a woman down on my push bike as I jumped on it, probably because the lights didn't come on it right away as it was dynamo operated; fortunately she was O.K.

Liverpool was getting hit hard during the war, and some nights I could see the sky lit up from my bedroom window. One night, the sirens went and we could hear a German plane flying overhead, so my sister Elsie and I got under the stairs. The windows shook, and we heard the bombs drop not far away and on the other side of the railway track our house backed on to. One bomb dropped onto the railway wall, and one or two dropped only yards away knocking down two or three houses.

Looking at the line of bombs and how they fell, the plane must have passed roughly over our house, and I consider myself and Elsie to be very fortunate to be alive.

In 1944, I joined the RAF to train for aircrew, but along with many others I was transferred into the Army and served for two and a half years in Palastine, as it was then called, and Egypt.

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