大象传媒

Interview with Eric Atkinson 31 July 2005 at Peterloo Court

Eric was born 1930 in Whit Lane, 4 Alderson St.

I lived there until being bombed out actually. When my mother died, she died leaving 3 children at the age of 32, me, my eldest brother and my youngest brother. They have since passed on. When she died, my father remarried and we had a step mother who was very cruel. They say today how they have the inspectors going round trying to stop people being cruel to children at school and at home, it鈥檚 not changed a thing from 1930. It鈥檚 still the same only there鈥檚 more people actually trying to do something. Well I鈥檝e lived with that from being about 3 year old when my mother died, but you鈥檇 be surprised how people are very unkind鈥�.She came to live with us and from that day on my life was absolute hell. Of course my grandmother was there as well. One Sunday morning she was cooking a bit of breakfast on the old fashioned grate and she threw at her head with the frying pan and had 14 stitches and she was 60 odd. That was the kind of woman she was. Eventually one thing led to another and the neighbours all joined and didn鈥檛 like her. Even if you helped yourself to a jam butty you got a flogging, well a good hiding, that鈥檚 all life was. Life was like that til I was old enough to leave home at 17 and then unfortunately I was going in the army. The week before she went to hit me with a bottle which was nothing fresh. Her temper was violent鈥eople did nothing about it鈥�

Anyway, the story goes, the war broke out in 1939, I鈥檇 be 9 then. I think it was on the Monday we got the news over the radio. It said that, Chamberlain I think, he said 鈥業 am sorry to have to tell you that we are at war with Germany鈥� and from then on all hell let loose because he was dropping bombs nearly every night. It got to the stage when London was hammered every night and Liverpool and Manchester started being bombed then and we all had to find air raid shelters. In those days they built some in the streets, what they call street shelters and this warden came knocking on the door, make sure you鈥檇 got out, go get in the air raid shelter. So we did and within about 2 minutes one of the bombs dropped and the top of the roof of the air raid shelter went up. So a fireman came in and told us all to get out, go and find somewhere else. You were running through the streets with houses on fire all around you. We were going through one street and we could hear this bomb coming down and what we did, we were with my grandmother at the time. We pushed her against this gable end and we lay on top of her so she wouldn鈥檛 get hurt. So we lay on top of her, there was me, our Joe and our George and of course the bomb went off and we didn鈥檛 know what it was and what damage it made cos we got up and made a bee line for the air raid shelter, it was under St George鈥檚 Church crypt, Whit Lane. We made it to there but there was fire everywhere. We got downstairs and we sat on old fashioned chairs that somebody had put in the crypt and someone came in and said they were dropping by parachute so they all got forks and pick axes and I鈥檒l say this, they were going to take them on. Anyway, they all went out and about three minutes later they all came running back and they found out there wasn鈥檛 parachutists, there was bombs on parachutes and they were about as big as a pillar box and they dropped them by parachute. Where the church entrance was, there was a row of houses there, a paper shop on this corner-and then you go up the street to the next corner, there was a little toffee shop-come grocer, and round the corner was a green grocer. Now the lad that lived there was my school pal. His mother had the green grocer鈥檚 and her mother had the grocer鈥檚. So we used to go in and get toffees off them for a laugh, anyway when we came out of the air raid shelter and the all clear went, we come out and there were bricks and all sorts all over the place and we managed to go round the corner, to where we lived and they found that bomb that was coming down by parachute had hit their house direct so it flattened his grandma鈥檚, his mother鈥檚 and the whole row had all gone and there was people digging. So we went home with my grandmother, made sure she got in the house alright but all the windows were out so men came round and boarded it up with barrage balloon cloth on a frame and put it over the windows so we could still live there and we went back to this friend鈥檚, where the bomb had gone off to try to help them. We were digging for hours, all men and women were helping. We actually found an arm, whether his mother鈥檚 arm or his mother-in-law鈥檚 arm. They never found him, his brother, mother, father, grandmother or grandfather. They never found anything or any part of them. But his father was in the pub, at Whit Lane called the King鈥檚 Arms and the landlord wouldn鈥檛 let them out. He made them go in their cellar. So when he got home from there, that鈥檚 what he got home to. The whole family and friends were all gone. We were all helping to dig and I remember when we used to go there from school and have an apple off his mother, or orange. They had a parrot and when we were digging we could hear this noise. Somebody said, 鈥渂e quiet鈥� and we all quietened down and we could hear this noise. Somebody talking. So everybody digged at the spot where they could hear it coming from. When the bomb had hit it, the living room and shop part all went down into the cellar. The parrot was on top of the piano in those days and that all went down into the cellar. So they found the parrot, the cage, it was still alive and it was behind the old piano. That was also in the cellar full of bricks. We had to shift a ton of bricks before we got to it, the policeman, and the fireman. They found Kenneth, the youngest one, still alive so they got him out and got an ambulance and took him to Salford Royal Hospital and unfortunately he died before they got there. So his father went berserk, went funny. That was one situation.

From then on, every street you went in, some bomb had gone off in it and all had people missing. People that you had known, people you used to go to school with, play with. We was going down Cromwell Road to a friend鈥檚 house (that鈥檚 what you did, visited one another鈥檚 houses) and we said, 鈥渓ook at that, a lad that used to live there, or a woman used to live there.鈥� We were going down a street near Cromwell Road. There were corporation houses on one side and ordinary old-type houses on the other side and we were told by notices everywhere that when an air raid starts, get out and get in the shelter. Well people took no notice of it and we were going up that road one day for a school friend and there was a woman on a bed, hanging out of the bedroom window 鈥� she never got up and went to the air raid shelter, she stayed in bed. Luckily it was hanging on the edge of the window frame. They managed to get a ladder up and get her off the bed, that was how shifty some people were. Everywhere you looked, everywhere you went, there were bodies here and bodies there.

And then we decided that instead of going in the air raid shelter we was on the bowling green and a little park on Whit Lane so we used to go in the bowling green air raid shelter. But it鈥檚 when you come out, what you going to find? We were cutting through a street round the corner from where we lived, I lived in Alderson Street, and the street round the corner was called Orchard Street where the cotton mills were. They were all going then, they are all gone and at the top, the coffee works and that street was called Holland Street and you turned left and come to a bridge called ??? Bridge went over the canal. We used to swim in there when we were kids and on that corner there鈥檚 a paper shop facing it and on the opposite corner a bomb had come over the coffee works, went right through the kitchen but it didn鈥檛 blew off in the kitchen, it blew backwards. They were called oil bombs and the reason for that was they drop incendiary bombs and as soon as they hit the floor they spark like a lighter and with the oil about, they set fire to it. They dropped tons of them first and then the bombers came over after, they started the fires, dropped the oil bombs on it so everywhere was just going up in smoke. Across the road from where it went in the kitchen window it blew backwards and blasted an ARP man into the brickwork, so it wasn鈥檛 pretty sight to go and see really. He must have been stood on the corner, having a smoke and the bomb went off so really every night you went to bed not knowing what was going to happen that night at all.

They evacuated you to a place called Rawtenstall 鈥� which I thought was miles away then, when I was a kid. Apparently, it is only a 30p bus ride away now. I was in a big house, a mansion house. I had a Nanna. She used to come in the morning, make us breakfast (porridge or something like that) and then take us to school; come home at night; give us our tea and get a wash and everything; make sure we went to bed. In the old days we used to have beds in the school yard that used to fold up like scissors and when you opened them they had a blanket sewn round it and you could just lie on it. That was all the beds that we had 鈥� we slept on them. The lads were in one room and the girls were in the other side of the house in another room. One guy used to scream every night and frighten everyone to death because they used to go home and lock you in. That wasn鈥檛 very exciting either; you didn鈥檛 know what your life was going to come to the next day and what the government was going to order. They ordered every kid to be evacuated, but where to? You didn鈥檛 know where you were going. They were about 8 lads and 9 girls in that house. You were all separated; they were at the other side of the house actually. You only saw them at breakfast. The adult didn鈥檛 stay, she used to go home at 6 o鈥檆lock, lock the place up, lock the bedrooms up and go home and come back about 8 o鈥檆lock in the morning. We used to walk to school about a mile up the road and walk back at tea-time. We鈥檇 have a bit of tea. Then we would have half an hour play out in the garden. Next thing, you would go to bed and you were locked in then until morning. It was absolute chaos. We didn鈥檛 have time to do anything naturally but as the war went on, it didn鈥檛 get any easier. Some children were very lucky, some got put on farms and some got put in places with shops like Southport or Blackpool. When I was born, as I was saying, I lost my mother and got a stepmother. I was evacuated for a few weeks. We was going to walk it home. What it was, my eldest brother Joe had to come home to have the Holy Communion at church and he told their mum and dad so they came for their children. My stepmother didn鈥檛 care but my dad came for us and took us all home again. We鈥檇 have been stuck there until the end of the war as far as I know 鈥�.

My father was a fireman during the war and he got blown out in a place in Trafford Park. He had to have 14 stitches in his leg but in those days you just bandaged it up and carried on. He was in this factory in Trafford Park and it just got flattened because all the factories were in Trafford Park; things were being made e.g. cotton for uniforms, oil for aeroplanes. Trafford Park was one big massive factory and he was in the warehouse that was on fire and he got blew through the window. They used to have big tanks that were about 6 foot deep and they were called fire tanks/water tanks and he fell right in it. Luckily it was deep enough to hold him. He hit the bottom but he鈥檇 caught his leg on some barbed wire and had to have 18 stitches in it. One thing led to another until the war was over. Being a fireman was his full time job all throughout the war. His friend was also in the fire service. His pal was a very funny man, he couldn鈥檛 care less. If you didn鈥檛 know what it was like while the war was on you wouldn鈥檛 realise what I was talking about. He was frightened to death of anything but he got used to it. He used to joke about it. He鈥檇 get to bed and get up and go to an air raid shelter. Some people used to go insane in the air raid shelters. But this Jimmy was a funny old fellow he was. He was in the fire service and they were stationed at a place called Douglas Green down Witt Lane and it鈥檚 still there actually. They made Cannon gas stoves. The office part of the factory was a fire station and that鈥檚 where all the office and the bedroom was, where you could have half an hours kip. Jim went walking up this ginnel at the side of St. Sebastian鈥檚 School and Church where the air raid shelter was under the park bowling green and they was like another entry and at the top of it was a little farm. Facing that was the offices of the fire service and he was walking down with about 12 incendiary bombs on his arm, they hadn鈥檛 gone off. When he got there, the officer went white because he {Jimmy} couldn鈥檛 care less 鈥� he didn鈥檛 know what he was doing, I don鈥檛 think. He ran out and said, 鈥淕et in that field and drop the lot and run!鈥� and he did and as he ran to the gates, they all went off, a massive load of flames. Jimmy was the luckiest man alive. An incendiary bomb was about 12 inches long and 2 inches circumference and the material was like a flint, like the edge of a match so when it hit anything it sparked. If there was any oil about! They had them coming over in droves, dropping them in the tonnes. So anywhere they lit, in any house or a workshop or stables for instance, it would just spark and set fire to what was near to because any time they went out, they burnt for ages. The whole lot would go. But if they dropped an oil bomb right behind it you can imagine what damage it does. They were very common. After the all clear went, you鈥檇 just go round looking for shrapnel and collecting it 鈥� they had bucket fulls some of them and swapped it for a fort. I didn鈥檛 remember being daft at the time but come to think of it they had a wing on the edge of them, the incendiary bomb, that used to guide it down like a fin and that used to come off by itself. I had bucket fulls of them you know. They鈥檙e all over the place. They did some right funny things collecting this and swapping this and that for it.

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