´óÏó´«Ã½

This story was added by Olivia Cubberley in the Hull Open Centre with the kind permission of Mrs P Lee.

In the summer of 1939, my school days, which I loved so very much, were over. With the outbreak of war hanging over England there was already much preparation going on. Everybody had been fitted with a gas mask, which had to be carried at all times. We had a few ‘gas drills’ at school when we had to wear them for about ten minutes. The fainting and hysterics which followed was something to behold. Thank God we never had to use them.

The ‘Anderson Shelters’ were going up in peoples gardens at a very fast rate. The general opinion was that people just would not be bothered to use them. Come the nightly air-raids it was a different story. They were turned into ‘homes from home’ fitted out with bunk beds, tea making facilities, paraffin stoves, candles, anything to give comfort through the long, long nights.

I left school on the Friday; I started work on the Monday at William Jackson’s shop on the corner of Bright Street, on Holderness Road. I was in a tiny cubicle, with two huge ledgers, a float of change, and was told how the payment system worked. The customer paid the assistant who then put the money and the bill in a metal canister and, by using a series of pulleys, it came to me in my cubicle. I wrote down the sale in one of the ledgers, put their change in the canister and sent it back to the assistant. All highly technical! Every night a gentleman came to check the ledgers and the money. He patted me on the head and told me I was a good girl! I suspect if I had been £5 adrift it would have been a different description.

Like school, I came to love my job. In those days, Thursday afternoon was the recognised half day for most of the shops in Hull, but I worked until 8 o’clock Fridays and Saturdays, and I was only 14. Incidentally, over sixty years later I can still remember that gentleman’s name, Mr Boothroyd, from West Yorkshire. However, after working at Jackson’s for 5 months, my mam asked me to leave and go to Reckitt’s where the wage was 10 shilling a week, as against the 7 shilling and six pence I was getting. If I did not apply before I was 14 1/2 years old, I would be classed as too old!! So I left a job I loved, to go to a job I hated, the noise and clatter was deafening. We had recently left our little terraced house in May Grove (which is still there) and moved to a three bedroomed house in Mersey Street, which of course was more rent, so that extra two shilling and six pence a week made a lot of difference to my mam. How she managed to keep our family of four when we were children on 17 shilling and sixpence a week (the rent was five shilling a week), I’ll never know. Whatever else we had to do without, we never went hungry. I can picture her now sewing, knitting, crocheting, baking, making slip rugs, never idle. Of course, in those days, there were no ‘State hand outs’ like there are today. The one redeeming factor for me working for Reckitt’s was that I got to use the swimming baths, and I joined the netball team, and the ladies cricket team. I loved sport, if only I had the energy to do it now!

My brother (who was 4 years older than me) worked for CD Holmes, the ship builders, my sister worked for Reckitt’s, then my mam started working for them, packing medical supplies to be sent abroad to the fighting forces. So, we moved into a Reckitt’s house, (at that time, only their employees could rent one). James Reckitt Avenue — much more up market than Mersey Street! It was, and of course still is, a semi-detached property. We had wonderful neighbours, Mr and Mrs Briggs; we spent many, many long nights with them in their shelter.

My brother joined the Merchant Navy, we never even saw him in his uniform, and he went straight from Hull to join his ship at Portsmouth. At this time we were getting nightly raids, everyone was getting so tired through lack of sleep, but we still had to go to work. One night the landmines dropped just across the road from us and we got the full blast, and we could no longer use the upstairs, it wasn’t safe. Only a few nights later it happened again, so Reckitt’s re-housed us and Mr and Mrs Briggs, to the same type house, semi-detached, just across the road, but a bit further along the Avenue. This time we were not attached to Mr and Mrs Briggs house. We were the other side of the crescent. After a few weeks, we got the news that 4th Officer Donald Brocklesby had been lost at sea. They had been to America and were bringing vital food supplies back. One day from home and the submarines were waiting for them. He was just 20 years old. The news broke my mother’s heart, and Doreen and I felt bereft, he had been a father figure to us, and took the place of the father we never knew. My dad had died from his wounds from the First World War, the war to end all wars, when we were both too young to remember him.

Now that the air raids were getting more and more frequent, two of my aunties and their families decided to spend the nights at Attwick, 2 miles from Hornsea, and persuaded mam to join them. Our accommodation was by no means the 5 star type. It was a wooden shack, no water, gas or electricity. At this time Reckitt’s introduced ‘staggered hours’ so instead of working 5 1/2 days a week (Saturdays until 1 o’clock) we now worked 4 days but longer hours to make up our full working week. So we often spent the long weekends in the shack. We used to walk about half a mile to the nearest farmer who kindly let us use his water supply. No plastic in those days so we took enamel buckets, pans, glass lemonade bottles, anything we could find. We must have looked a real sight, a tribe of us parading down the lane, all carrying our water supplies. We did have a coal fire with a side oven, so on working mornings our mother’s got up about 4.30am, lit the fire to boil the kettle for us have a cup of tea before we set off on our long trek to work. This involved a 2 mile walk into Hornsea. We caught the first bus into Hull, about 5.45am, then got off at Laburnum Avenue, walked down there, then right down Chamberlain Road, down Stoneferry to Reckitt’s Canister Works, to start a long days work amid the constant clatter of the machinery. I wonder how many youngsters would have the stamina to do that nowadays. At this time we had ‘double summer time’ so it always seemed to be light from about 4 o’clock in the morning until 11 o’clock at night. Strangely enough, I can’t seem to remember it ever raining during this time but it must have done.

One night our Ladies Cricket Team had a very important match to play, so I asked mam if I could stay with Mr and Mrs Briggs for the night. They were more than willing to let me sleep there, but mam wanted me to go up to Hornsea with them. Mr and Mrs Briggs assured mam that I would be quite safe with them. There were terrible air raids that night, we were in the shelter and we heard the bomb whistling down over our heads. Then such an explosion, and the sound of buildings collapsing. It was a terrifying experience. When the ‘All Clear’ went, we ventured out of the shelter, the first thing we saw was a heap of bricks where the house used to be and next door was just a shell! If Mr and Mrs Briggs’ house had been attached to ours, we would never have survived. The neighbours rallied round, someone lent me a bike and a coat, as I only had my pyjamas to my name. Mrs Briggs had insisted on washing out my cricket kit so it was still very wet. I couldn’t use anything of hers, she was a very large lady. So I was sent to Durham Street Church, which was a depot for helping people who had just been bombed out. Unfortunately, as I was built like a stick insect, and all arms and legs, they didn’t have anything to fit me. I ended up with a pair of boys grey flannel trousers and a shirt! When I got back to Mrs Briggs, she told me I must walk down Summergangs Road on to Holderness Road where we got off the Hornsea bus, so that my mam could see I was safe, then break the news to her about the house. Well they say ‘best laid plans’. From Attwick they had all seen the pounding that Hull was taking, so they all decided to come home, but this morning instead of the bus, they were all picked up by a lorry. So whilst I was waiting on Holderness Road, the lorry turned off at Ings road and went down James Reckitt Avenue, and that was when my mam saw the devastation, and no Pat. Another great shock for her.

We now stopped going to Attwick, we lived with my auntie for a while and then we eventually moved into Westcott Street, a church owned property. We had just got settled into that, when it was wanted for a preacher newly arrived in Hull. So we moved, but we didn’t stay there long either, I think it was because my mam had seen a mouse in the house. The next move was just across the road, and mam stayed there a few years. Part 2 to follow...

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