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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 Marion Graham and has been added to the site with the author permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

WAR TIME SCHOOLDAYS

By
MARION GRAHAM

I was born in Fairbank Road on Norwood estate, Sheffield, and I really should have attended Longley Infants' School but my Mum wanted me to go to Southey Green School, so I started there on 1st September 1939 - just a couple of days before World War II was declared.

I remember that we had some time off school, I think because people thought the Germans might come marching down the road any day! Whilst air-raid shelters were being built at the school, we went to "home study" groups where a few children in our group - I think there were about six or seven of us - went to a house near to where we lived and a teacher came there to teach us. I suppose it was a bit hit-and-miss really, I don't think we went everyday - the teachers would have to do the rounds of several houses I expect.

Anyway, when the shelters were ready, we were able to go back to school and we used to have practice sessions of what we would have to do if there really was an air-raid. We were all issued with gas-masks which were in cardboard boxes with a cord strap that went over our shoulder, and we had to carry them with us at all times, going to and from school. When there was an air-raid practice we had to put on the gas-masks and even now, I can still remember that horrible rubber smell which was trapped inside the mask, and the way the mask gripped around your forehead, and what a relief it was to take it off.

We were only about 5 or 6 years old so I expect it was quite a job for the teachers to get us into the masks, but I don't remember it being any great hassle. In those days you just did as you were told, when you were told, and then we marched off into the shelters where we all sat for about 15 minutes before filing out again and going back into class.

The good points were that:
(1) when we took the masks off we were given a boiled sweet to eat (probably to take away that awful taste) and, more importantly,
(2) we never actually had a real air-raid while we were in school, they always happened at night.

Actually, the most I remember about the air-raids was that I would be woken up sometimes in the middle of the night and walked outside, still half-asleep, into the shelter which was in the garden of the house next door to us. There were bunk-beds in the shelter and I was put into one of them and promptly went back to sleep. Sometimes, if there was a very loud bang, I would wake up, but I really do not remember being particularly frightened. I think it was sort of as if although the bombs were dropping it was all happening somewhere else, and we were not really involved. We never got any serious damage close by so we were not very much affected.

On the night of the Sheffield Blitz, my Mum, my Dad and I were in the Forum cinema, which stood where the Tesco store is now on Herries Road. The film was interrupted by the manager to say that the air-raid siren had sounded, but that the film would be carrying on! Most people just stayed but at the end of the film they said everyone had to leave the building, and by that time the raid was in full swing. I remember the noise of the planes and the bombs dropping. The bangs sounded quite near but they turned out to be in the Attercliffe area where the factories were and in the town centre.

We made our way towards home but when we came to the public air-raid shelter at the junction of Herries Road and Longley Avenue, my Dad said that we should go in there and not try to go any further.

We stayed in the shelter with lots of other people all night, and when we went home in the morning, after the "All-Clear" had sounded, we found our front door blown in and lying on the stairs, and a few panes of glass broken in the front windows. Afterwards we realised how lucky we had been compared to some.

I suppose I must have felt a little bit more apprehensive after the Blitz - but not for long I think. Things slipped back to normal except that my aunt and uncle and two cousins had to move in with us for a little while because their house on Danville Street had become unsafe because of bomb damage to houses just a few doors away from them.

We went to school as usual, and came home and went out to play as usual. I guess the adults had a different slant on it, but my parents and our neighbours never let me know how worried they were (and I found out later that of course they had indeed been very worried).

I think the thing I recall most about the air-raids (other than the Blitz), was that the lady whose shelter it was, kept it as neat and tidy as she did her house. I can still remember her grumbling at my Dad and her own husband for not wiping their feet before coming into the shelter after they had been out for hours in all weathers - fire-watching!

Pr-BR

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