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In the last week of August 1939, I was on holiday in Scarborough, with my parents and grandmother. It was my parents’ first holiday since they were married in 1928. It was by way of an insurance policy; my father’s father had just died. I was aged 10 1/4.

It must have been assumed by most people that a war was coming, and very soon. During the day, many of the children helped to fill sandbags on the beach. We all enjoyed this, without realising the full significance of the situation (although, we saw some photographs of damaged buildings in Scarborough due to shelling from the sea in the First World War). The film at the Odeon was ‘Goodbye Mr Chips’, which we went to see.

We were only there for a week, and came home by train on Saturday 2nd September. The Germans had invaded Poland the day before and we had given them an ultimatum. This was ignored and on Sunday 3rd September at 11.00am Mr Chamberlain was on the wireless to tell us that we were at war with Germany. France followed soon after.

The plans for the evacuation of the children must have been well on the way. In a few days our local children were sent off to safer areas in Cheshire. We lived in Old Trafford, which was quite close to Trafford Park, Manchester town centre, and other obvious targets. But my mother decided that I was not to go away, although most of my school (St Hilda’s Junior School) went.

But there was no alternative school yet. My mother tried to start me at a local church (St John’s) in a school set up in the church hall for non-evacuees. But the vicar, Mr Buller-Ridler was sorry; he was full. There was another school set up for pupils aged between 11 — 14 and I was allowed to go in the mornings, although the work was way above my head.

When war was declared, we were living in a fairly large terraced house at 61 Clifton Street. It had two cellars and an attic as well as the other, usual rooms. It was originally rented by my mother’s father, but he had died in 1938 and in due course my father decided it would be better to move to a smaller house. So we all moved to 6 Worthington Street, which was about a mile away. By this time, air raid shelters were being built all over — communal and family. We had a small brick one with a concrete roof, in the back yard. There was a hole in one wall filled with larger, loose bricks, which could only be pushed outwards.

By this time, thousands of young men were being called up for the forces, including the Territorial Army. My father was too old, but like everyone else he had to do something to help. He shared fire-watching rotas at his depot, and he joined the Ambulance Service as part of the Air Raid Precautions (also known as Civil Defence). He was driving a Rolls-Royce ambulance. The blackout was imposed at once.

My mother had to do war work, and she started at Duerr’s Jams at their factory, which was at the end of Worthington Street. My grandmother looked after the house — cooking and shopping. Ration books had been issued as well as Identity Cards. Mine was NXFK.219.4. Everyone was also issued with a gas mask that you had to carry everywhere.

In the Spring of 1940, I went to the local Technical College to take the Scholarship for the Stretford Grammar School. Despite a distinct lack of recent schooling, I passed. There had been a few spasmodic raids during the Spring or Summer and they decided we should report to the school during the holidays and play games and join clubs. The school had been requisitioned by the army. There had been an anti-aircraft machine gun emplacement in the middle of the cricket pitch. Slit trenches had been dug in the running track, and the rugby posts had disappeared — never to return again. Every classroom had a mysterious ring of small holes in one wall, which we gathered was where the dartboards had been. By the time we got there, the school was more or less back to normal, except three of the downstairs corridors had been strengthened, anti-blast walls built, and the windows blocked. They stayed like this until the end of the war.

In Europe, the war was stagnant initially, but in May Germany attacked Belgium, Holland and France. Winston Churchill took over as Prime Minister as head of a coalition government including Labour and Liberals. But the German ‘blitzkrieg’ was very successful and eventually the British Expeditionary Force plus some French troops was driven back to the coast at Dunkirk. By June, miraculously, over 300,000 allied troops were able to get back to England. I saw some troops billeted in local schools such as Seymour Park. They were very dirty. Later that month, France capitulated.

The Germans began their bombing raids in earnest. Many people thought it was the preliminary to an invasion. It was concentrated in the South, but during August, September and October, The RAF Fighter Command had been so successful that Hitler put aside any plans he may have had for an invasion.

In the Manchester area, there had been a few sporadic raids, but nothing serious. So much so, that we didn’t always go into the shelter when the sirens sounded. But all this changed at Christmas 1940, in what became known as the ‘Manchester Blitz’, concentrated in the nights of December 22nd and 23rd.

The sirens sounded at 6.35pm in the evening of the first night, but at first we didn’t bother too much. Dad had already reported for duty when we began to realise that the bombs were getting nearer and more frequent. So my mother, my grandmother and I picked up a lot of cushions, plus the little attaché case with all the family insurance policies. As we went across the living room there was a huge explosion and we all dropped under the table with all the cushions. Luckily it wasn’t so near, but it blew out a lot of windows. Anyway, we managed to get into the shelter safely. The bombing and the anti-aircraft guns continued all night until 6.28am when the all-clear sirens went. In fact I did sleep for much of this night. When we went back inside, we discovered that the electricity was off, but luckily the gas was on for the cooker and of course we had coal for the fire for warmth. By this time my father had come home and he covered the broken windows and rigged up many candles ready for the next evening.

He did not tell us at first, but later we discovered he had volunteered for duties at the local morgue and he continued to do this whenever we had any fatalities in local air raids. He had to deal with a squad of firemen who had been machine-gunned by a low flying bomber in Trafford Park. He was very upset to see a baby, apparently whole and uninjured, but killed by blast.

During the day after the first night, I went out to have a look around. I collected a lot of shrapnel, a nose cone from an AA shell and a tail off an incendiary bomb. There were several bombs near our house and I saw people being dug out by the ARP people. We were lucky because a parachute mine had landed at the end of Clifton Street and several houses had collapsed into the cellars, including our previous house, 61. It was never rebuilt and the site is now part of the playing field for a new school, built after the war. But in going around I began to appreciate the danger. This appreciation was intensified when the sirens sounded again at 7.07pm and we went into the shelter without delay. This time I was scared. The bombs seemed just as bad as the previous night, but the all clear was sounded at 12.15am and we were able to go to bed.

During those two nights many bombs dropped on Stretford and Trafford Park, which were prime industrial targets. The commercial centre of Manchester was attacked by incendiary bombs and practically destroyed. My Aunt Nellie worked near London Road station and told us about making her way across Piccadilly, over hosepipes and debris, whilst firemen were still fighting the fires.

When the war first broke out, the government more or less closed everything, probably thinking that the Germans would start extensive bombing at once. In fact, they were more occupied in Belgium, Holland and France; so it was decided to open cinemas, dance halls and so on to help boost morale. We went to the local cinemas several times each week, going through the blacked-out streets with the aid of small electric torches, and always carrying our gas masks. We listened to the wireless a lot. There were many popular programmes such as ITMA and everyone seemed to enjoy them. Catch phrases got into a lot of people’s conversations.

Bombing continued all over the country for several years, particularly in Liverpool and London. But because of Manchester’s geography, it did not suffer as much. By 1942, air raids more or less petered out — to some extent because the Luftwaffe was very occupied in Russia (invaded June 1941) and North Africa and then Italy.

Obviously there were a few raids up to 1942 and one in particular stands out. We were in the shelter when a local warden came around shouting that a stick of incendiaries containing magnesium had landed along our street. My father was at home at this time and I went with him into the front room. I had never seen such bright, white light. The houses and the street were lit much better than the brightest day. Everyone had a bucket of water and a sandbag in the porch. We all went out and put out these incendiaries with the water and sand. We had all been very lucky. Thank goodness the bombs landed along the street, instead of along the roofs of the houses.

During the period 1940-1942, despite Manchester not being hit as much as other cities, much damage was done to such buildings as the Free Trade Hall, the Royal Exchange, the Assize Courts, the docks, factories and warehouses in Trafford Park, several railway stations, several hospitals, some theatres and many public houses. I particularly remember extensive damage to the Stretford Girls High School, St Hilda’s Junior School (my school), Old Trafford Baths, Manchester United’s Ground and Lancashire County Cricket ground.

Towards the end of the war, 1944/1945, the German’s launched the V1’s (the first flying bombs known as ‘Doodlebugs’) and then the V2 Rockets. These landed mainly in London and the South East, but records show that only one got into the Manchester Civil Defence Area, landing at Parrs Wood. But a few others landed in Oldham, Stockport, Radcliffe and Tottington.

I attended Stretford Grammar School from September 1940 until July 1946. Many boys were called up during the war and several were killed. My friends and I were too young, although we were not sure how long it may have lasted, so we joined the Scouts and then the Army of Air Force cadets, anticipating the possibility of eventual call-up. In fact the war was finished before this happened. Even so, there were regular parades through Sretford, including what came to be known as the Home Guard.

By 1942, the Americans were well established in Britain. They had come into the war in December 1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour in the Pacific and the Germans followed by declaring war on the U.S. A very large base was established at Burtonwood, near Warrington and my friend Howard Williams and I usually went to Manchester on Saturday mornings to visit the Scout shop, but also to ‘inspect’ the Americans and the uniforms of the other armies from Canada, France, Poland and so on.

Several boys from the Old Trafford area were killed during the war. Included was Gordon Midgley, who joined the Scots Guards, then trained as a Glider Pilot and was killed at the landing at Arnhem. He was aged 19, buried in Holland. He was in the Old Trafford Scouts.

In virtually the last week of the war in Europe, Edward Charlton was killed. He was in the Irish Guards — the Guards Armoured Division. He conducted himself with outstanding bravery and was awarded the Victoria Cross, the last of the Second World War.

May 9th 1945 was declared as ‘VE Day’, the day of Victory in Europe. On 6th August the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan, on Hiroshima and on 9th August the second bomb as dropped on Nagasaki. The Japanese surrendered and the war was completely over. All over, during May and August, there were street parties to celebrate.

G Maurice Roe
November/December 2003

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