大象传媒

Leeds was lucky escaping air raids during the war. This night my mother, father and brother, along with several other families from the Quarry HILL flats, had answered the siren alert. We kids were all sat there singing and really enjoying being out of bed so late. We could hear the ack ack guns from the local site firing away. Suddenly there was a hugh bang and I remember white dust falling from the roof of the shelter .Then a commotion and I remember one of the men a Mr O'neil ( the father of a friend of ours) taking the younger children and laying on them for protection.It was all over in seconds. No damage, only, I suppose fear. Rumours were rife a man came down and said the flats had be razed to the ground(greatly exagerated as we found out later)
An air- raid warden had been badly injured in his legs. A friend of the family a George Barclay had been hit in the back by a piece of shrapnel.

When the all clear sounded my parents,brother and I came out of the shelter to find flames from a gas main shooting sky high and local shops in ruins. The local goods yard just opposite the shelter had slight damage.

When we arrived at the family home we found the door had been blown off and all the windows blown out. The floor was thick with soot and what furniture we had was damaged.The passage way from the hall was riddled with shrapnel marks.

Apparently my father had said that if the sirens went that night( maybe another of several false alarms experienced in Leeds) we would stay in our flat and remain in that very passage way. Lucky us!!! for some unknown reason my dad had thought better of it and taken us to the shelter.

I remember my mother then taking my brother and I ( I would be about 10 yrs and my brother 12 yrs) each side of her and walking up the York Road to see my grandmas, who lived a short distance away.

We passed burnt out shops and flames still shooting up from the gas main.

Yes that was a lucky escape, if we had done what my father proposed and stayed in the hall we would have certainly been killed or severly injured

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