大象传媒

[June] I remember very vividly the day it was announced that we were at war 鈥� I could tell from my parents鈥� seriousness that they were very upset because they had already lived through a war. But I had a very guilty feeling because I thought 鈥淕ood at last I will know what it is all the grownups have been talking about all these months鈥�.

I remember the blackout. We鈥檇 just moved into this house three days before so not all the curtains had arrived and my mother had to go out and buy rolls of special material, but we had left our old treadle machine behind, so there she was sewing by hand. We had to get lots of bits of cardboard up to the windows, and there are a lot of windows in this house, just about every room has 2 windows. I remember even after the war when it was getting dusk we would say, 鈥渙h I鈥檒l just pop and do the blacking out鈥� 鈥� it was one of the duties I could do as an older girl was the blacking out.

One night we鈥檇 done the blackout and my father and mother were about to go to bed when they heard the door go. My father opened the door and 2 soldiers were standing there with fixed bayonets 鈥� you are showing a light 鈥� and of course the barracks are here just beyond us and we are straight across to the coast, and my father went outside to see which light it was; collected my sleepy little brother into his arms, took him downstairs and said 鈥� I鈥檓 afraid this is the culprit!

Being between Beverley and the barracks we saw a lot of soldiers marching up and down, some raw recruits coming up with their suitcases, because it was a training barracks, trudging their way up from the station, and a week or so later marching very smartly down again. It was a great transformation of all those young men. We were brought up hearing the bugle sounds, reveille, last post, cookhouse, all those, and also rifle fire we heard a lot.

Because we lived out of Beverley we couldn鈥檛 always hear the air raid sirens if the wind was in the wrong direction, but we would know if there had been a warning because we would see the barrage balloons go up over Hull.

We didn鈥檛 go to the shelters immediately, we would often have warnings and they would pass over. We got a tremendous number of warnings, I think it was one of the largest number anywhere because they were passing over us to go to other cities and places further inland.

And then they either gave us the all-clear once they鈥檇 passed and then another when they came back, or we had a very long warning. So it would depend rather on the weather, if there was deep snow on the ground (which there was more of in those days) it was very cold going out to the air raid shelter in the garden.

Quite a few nights early on in the war we would look out and see the searchlights across the sky, and occasionally you would see one of the German planes caught in the lights and see the flak going up trying to hit them.

I remember being in the air raid shelter when they hit the barracks. We had a kettle and electric point, and the kettle had been boiled ready for my parents to make a hot drink but nobody had brought the milk over, so in a lull we were going to pop over and get some milk. But we were waiting for the lull when this happened and all the electricity went off, so there was only tepid water in the kettle and we had to have lemonade.

We had garage doors which were blown open from the blast, and our neighbours on the barracks side, their fire came out onto the hearth, luckily they were there. A lot of people had windows broken but I don鈥檛 remember us having any shattered.

My mother had extra bedrooms while we were evacuated, so she had members of the family to stay from Hull. Her parents and sister lived in Newland Park and they came to stay in one of the blitzes. She remembered her elderly mother looking out of the window and saying 鈥渙h my poor Hull, my poor Hull!鈥� The sky was just a red blaze, and there was a fantastic view of Hull then.

[Gordon] I think we got a lot of bombers because this part of the country was used as a bomber base out of the reach of German attack, and we鈥檝e got a lot of flat ground here in the East Riding, so it was an ideal place to use for bomber bases. So we would get an awful lot of bombers coming over, and you鈥檇 hear them coming back in the early hours of the morning, and some of the engines were struggling and you鈥檇 think they wouldn鈥檛 make it.

[June] Two soldiers on sentry duty lost their lives when the barracks was hit, and that鈥檚 what decided my parents to send us away to school. They wanted a school that would take us both, they didn鈥檛 want us to be split up again, and it was very difficult to find a school that would take a boy aged 4 and a girl aged 12. Then they heard that Hull High School was already evacuated and they had a kindergarten as well as senior so we went there. It was just south of the Lake District between the villages of Milnthorpe and Kendal in a house was called Horncop.

As an older child (June Atkinson aged 11)I was very upset indeed. I realised that my parents were going to be left behind in the danger zone and there was a possibility that we might not see each other again so I was desperately homesick. My little brother thought it was good fun, there were all these toys.

We only stayed for a year, partly because the bombing was not so bad by then, but also my brother would get out of bed without his slippers on. There was no central heating and he was getting a chesty cough and the doctors said there was more risk of him developing a weak chest than having a bomb dropped on him.

We knew some people who lived near the Driffield area and they had a large room, which they always referred to as 鈥榯he ballroom鈥�. They were asked to billet 6 airmen in there who were going out bombing, so they could get a quiet night off the station. After a while they couldn鈥檛 take any more, because time after time a van would roll up to take away the belongings of the young men who had not returned. These people found it heart-rending and very hard to cope with.

I can remember towards the end of the war one of my parents calling out one evening, and we ran out onto the back lawn and the sky was just covered, dotted all over with our bombers, going east and we stood there and tried to count them, but we couldn鈥檛 count them at all. They weren鈥檛 in any formation, they were just dotted. They just kept coming, wave after wave, there was more and more. I believe that was called blanket bombing, just near the end of the war.

I remember inside me thinking good, at last they鈥檙e going to get it back again, what we had to put up with all these years. I heard my mother saying 鈥渟ome poor souls鈥�, as a mother and an adult she saw the human side much than I did as a child who was just feeling patriotism and revenge.

I remember going to the cinema in Hull, it must have been towards the end of the war because it was considered fairly safe to go into Hull by then. We met my father from his business to go to the Regal cinema, and as a treat we went to the station buffet on the corner directly opposite the cinema for some tea. With the rationing, the caf茅s and so on were rationed too, and I remember the wonderful choice, beans on toast, spaghetti on toast, poached egg on toast, full stop. I remember sitting there and seeing the criss-cross of brown paper on all the windows.

[Gordon] I remember there were a lot of prisoners of war here, Italians and German. They occupied some huts up in Normandy Camp, and the Italians used to make toys. I remember having some clever little toys that they had made.

I used to go and talk with the Germans, there was always an English sentry up there, and I remember he said I could talk to them except one chap who was obviously a Nazi sergeant or something, but the others were always very friendly.

I spent many happy hours in the redundant chalk pit that was part rubbish tip from the tannery where they dumped waste from horse and carts. They had road courses down the quarry face walls. They had a rifle range there and the soldiers trained there. Me and other lads around the area just went there, we鈥檇 climb trees and spend all day playing in the pit. It鈥檚 a children鈥檚 playground now, but then it was a real adventure playground with trees to climb.
[NB This chalk pit is the one in which the Beverley North Patrol of the Secret Resistance had their Operational Base, but the Atkinsons were extremely surprised when told of this.]

[June] Next door to us there was a house that was let to military personnel, somebody reasonably in charge of the barracks or one of the air stations around. At one stage Randolph Churchill, Winston鈥檚 son came to live there. I remember my mother saying that every so often some armoured vehicle would park outside the gate, and he would walk in the front door and his crew would walk in the back door to be given tea or coffee or something round the back.

Beverley was so much quieter in those days, compared to how congested and busy it is now. Victoria Road is so busy now. Then it was just a B-road, the main road to Hull was via Dunswell and Woodmansey and this road only went to Hessle. There was a bus if you were lucky.

There were 2 herds of cows here, one in the field behind us with 12-15 cows and the other had up to 50 cows. Those 2 herds went down the road and back again twice a day for milking. Sheep would be taken along there too. There was one wonderful shepherd who would walk along in front of the flock with his red handkerchief just stopping them going past him, and his dog would bring up the rear, and there would be not a sound except for the pitter-patter of their hooves on the road, which you could hear perfectly. It was a wonderful sight to see.

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