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Childhood memories of the Blitz in Belfast

I was born in 1938 and have clear memories of the war years, when my family was living in the Donegall Road area of Belfast. My father worked in the shipyard, like most of the men in our area. He also spent many evenings as an Air Raid Patrol warden.

While my dad was carrying out his ARP duty on the streets of Belfast he would encourage my mum to use the air raid shelter as he worried about us being alone in the house while he was out - he would keep calling back home to check that all was well with us. Mum spent one night at the shelter but refused to go back because of the smell.

When the women and children from the area were evacuated to a farm near Lisburn, I remember going through great big wide doors into a place covered with straw, mum told me it was a barn. My friends and I were exploring the barn and found a ‘monster’ in a corner. We ran for our mothers telling them what we had come across, only to be told it was a cow and we would have to share its quarters for the night.

Next morning my mum and our neighbour decided they would rather be at home and gathered us children together. The only means of transport we could get was on the back of a coal lorry, so that when we arrived home tired and weary wanting to get to our own beds again, my mum said we were like little coal miners covered in coal dust from the lorry.

Mum dug her heels in saying she would not leave the house again no matter how many raids there were so dad gave up and settled for putting a mattress under the stairs for us to sleep on during the Blitz as he said of all the houses he had seen that had been bombed, the staircases were always left standing.

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