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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Roger Marsh of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of Roy Finney, and has been added to the site with the author’s permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

These memories are taken from a special edition of a newsletter kindly submitted by Longstone Local History Group. It was edited by Liz Greenfield and published in Autumn 2002. Longstone was a village which sheltered evacuees and was comparatively unaffected by air attack, although the night sky was often lit by the fires of the Sheffield Blitz.

Longstone Local History Group - Roy Finney’s Story
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Other parts to this story are at:

Introduction: A7887487

Frank, A and S Hurst: A7888396

Flames of Sheffield: A7888657

Molly Thornhill’s Story: A7888882

Tony Greenfield’s Story: A7889133

Martin Simon’s Story: A7889557

Stella Holmes’ Story: A7889971

Home defence remembered: A7890230

Burma servicemen Remembered: A7890492

Norman Hoare’s Story: A7891004

Norman Hassal’s Story: A7891202

Women’s Institute: A7891888

One family’s War Part One: A7892562

One Family’s War Part Two: A7893534

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I was at Longstone School when the war broke out. Mr. Buggins was headmaster. Other teachers I remember were Miss. Lomas, Miss. Robinson and Miss. Charlesworth. I moved to the boys' school in Bath Street, Bakewell, which we boys knew as The Academy. During the 1940s, evacuees from Manchester arrived by train. Some girls stayed with Mrs Herrington (Mick Goodison's grandma) and the boys with Mrs. Hambleton on Sunny Bank. It took them a while to settle to country life but they were soon joining us, raiding Thornbridge and Dr Skinner's orchard at The Manor and going up on Longstone Moor (caving we called it). We would crawl in the workings of the old lead mines and one day, we took one of the evacuees, Stan Laverty, but he got very, very dirty, so we persuaded him to jump in a pond and clean himself up. Next minute my mate slipped and fell right in; all us lads were rolling about with laughter but he was scared to go home. `My dad'll kill me,' he said, but luckily when we got home his dad was out.

We had double summer time during the war, so we played outside till quite late, boating on Thornbridge lakes until Mr. Boot's staff moved us off. In the winter, Rowdale pond was a favourite spot for ice-skating.

I lived with my grandparents during the war, and one night, when there was an air raid in Sheffield, Granddad said, `Come on, we'll go for a walk up Stansal Dale.' It was pitch black, but when we got there, we could see lots of flashing lights on the horizon. I thought it was very exciting but frightening. Granddad used to play pop about the searchlights in Coplow Dale: `Showing them the way, they are!'
When a stick of bombs was dropped in Great Hucklow, we lads were off on our bikes collecting shrapnel. One Saturday they dropped bombs near Stoney Middleton and machine gunned Chatsworth House. When the news came on the radio, we had to sit very quietly, particularly when the Prime Minister was speaking.

The railway station was our main connection to Derby and Manchester. We were on one of the main freight lines to the north west docks from the east midlands area. Sometimes I stayed at Woodlands with my Auntie Myra (Saunders) and late at night, we could hear the trains coming, fully loaded with we knew not what and could not see. Their wheels were slipping on the lines due to the excess weight they were pulling; engines on the front pulling, engines on the back pushing. As the train went past we could see the fireman shovelling coal at great speed. The next day we would see five or six light engines, coupled to each other, returning to Rowsley, back to base ready to go to work again.

All the boys and girls from school were sent, in groups of 10 or 12, to do light work on the farms. This would be hoeing potato rows, singling turnips in the fallow fields, and potato picking. We didn't care for stone picking, clearing the fields before seeding. I recall 22 farms in the area but now there are only five left.

When I left school I started work with my uncle, Sam Gillot. His wife Millicent and my mother were sisters. My first job was to fetch water from the pump; there was a standpipe situated some 80 yards down the village. I thought he'd said pub, so I knocked on the pub door and asked the landlady if she could fill my buckets. She said, `You are the first customer I've had in years young man. Would you like mild or bitter?' She then told me the pump was down the road, this being the only supply in the village for washing and drinking. I learnt my lesson. ‘Listen before you walk off.’

My uncle was a cattle dealer and I went with him to all the local markets, Buxton, Bakewell, Chapel-en-le-Frith, Leek, Holmfirth, Penistone, Chester and Macclesfield, which was special because my uncle always bought me a silk neck tie; I had a drawer full. One day, later in the war, when we were stooking corn sheaves on Seedlow, behind Longstone Moor, there was the most strange deafening noise. We looked up and the sky was full of planes, maybe 40 or 50. They were so low we could see the markings on the aircraft. They were American Flying Fortress B17s and B52s, going east, but we could only guess where. `Careless talk costs lives', `Put that light out,' `Shut that door'. How many million times was that shouted at us during the war?

It was brought home to me what the war was all about when I went to Sheffield with my uncle, Bill Pheasey from Ashford. We delivered the milk we had collected from local farmers and I saw all the devastation. And when the lads from the village didn't come back from the war it made you ponder.

Pr-BR

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