大象传媒

Story entered by The British Schools Museum, Hitchin on behalf of one of our volunteer guides, Joyce Donald:
My home during the war was in Middleton, a cotton town five miles north of Manchester. The war coincided with my Grammar School years. I was greatly disappointed when the start of the school year was delayed until air-raid shelters were dug around the sports field.
We all thought that going to the shelters was a bit of a lark and hoped that the alert would last for at least 20 minutes when Horlicks tablets would be distributed. Whilst down there we always had a gas-mask practice; it was not long before we realised that blowing out hard made the rubber at the side of the face produce a very satisfactory raspberry. The teachers were driven mad trying to find the culprits in the near darkness.
It now seems incredible that my first planned grammar school trip was to be an Easter visit to Paris in 1940. We paid 拢15 by weekly instalments. Not until well after Christmas was it cancelled. A good illustration I think of our faith in the Maginot Line.
For a short time we had evacuees from Chadderton in school since their school buildings were close to the A.V.Roe factory where Lancaster bombers were built. There were fifty children in each form and the desks were packed tight together, three and sometimes four children sitting on two desks. To get from front to back or left to right was over the desks. How we could we have escaped in an emergency?
At home my parents, sister and I sat and listened to the wireless to hear Chamberlain make the declaration of war. Within half an hour my father and uncle were at the bottom of our long garden digging a trench for an air-raid shelter. Neither would stop for a break and by nightfall it was complete with a turf roof, duck-boards and wooden seats down both sides. The phoney war meant that it was weeks before it could have been needed and in a short time there were several inches of water in the bottom. Apart from an initial "dummy run" it was never used and was soon filled in again.
The next shelter was much more satisfactory, being under the floor. Our footings were about four and a half feet high. A trap-door was cut in the hall floor and the shelter made in the corner by the fire-place, the furthest from the outside wall - the safest place in the house. The floor above and the walls were braced with heavy timbers. A hole through the dividing wall meant that we or our neighbours could escape that way if need be. My sister and I had a great time creeping around, exploring under the floor next door.
We had a store of tinned food, books, magazines, games and playing cards. We had deck chairs to sit on at first but my father later made bunk beds so that my sister and I could lie down, though my parents still used the chairs.

Apart from the Manchester Christmas blitz there was not much enemy aircraft activity in our area and from 1942 we stayed in our bed when the siren went off.
We did have one German raider jettison his load of bombs; one landed in the field at the top of our road and failed to explode. Just as our Sunday lunch was on the table a messenger came to tell my father that as a member of the Home Guard he must go and guard the hole. Off he went with his rifle, dinner untouched, and did not return until he was relieved at tea-time. That bomb never did explode and I suspect it is there still under a new housing estate.

My friend and I greatly enjoyed going for a cycle ride and since our town was on the slopes of the Pennines we always went south through Manchester and into Cheshire which was rural and flat. The miles sped by. Then came the Americans and many of their camps were built in that area.
Brought up on Hollywood and the cinema these men seemed exotic, exciting and wearing such lovely uniforms. We were in heaven! Off we would go in our skimpy shorts and ride past the camps where the boys would whistle and call after us. We thought it was wonderful especially since they were safely behind a chain-link fence. I think we would have died of fright if any of them had got within arms length of us. What an innocent age it was.
After a long and cold winter - no central heating - spring was with us again and in the Easter holidays off we rode to Cheshire. In a narrow lane we had to dismount for a convoy of army vehicles crammed with American soldiers. On they went, truck after truck with the boys whistling and calling after us. One I remember called out, "Meet me outside the cinema in Wilmslow on Saturday night". Finally the last truck went by and we continued our ride to the first army camp. It was completely deserted with the gate swinging on its hinges where a guard had stood before. The next camp was the same and we returned home disappointed and puzzled.
It was only a few weeks later that we learned where they were going. The year was 1944.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.