大象传媒

Memories of WW 2.

As a family we lived in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, throughout the war. Initially there were just three of us 鈥� I was now an only child, my older brother having died at the age of five from meningitis when I was 18 months old. Being born in 1934 meant that I commenced at the infants鈥� part of Oswald Road school in the September that war was declared. No sooner had I started there then the school was evacuated to Hope in Derbyshire. We travelled there by train with our small suitcases and our gasmasks over our shoulders in their little cardboard boxes. I had an older cousin in the junior school and she was charged with taking care of me. We both lodged together with a local family, but possibly they found two extra children too much so I was moved to stay with an elderly couple, a Mr & Mrs Shirt who lived just outside the village, adjacent to a disused railway line to the local cement works. He was a keen gardener, growing vegetables as well as banks of sweet peas and other flowers, and also saplings for walking sticks.

As a 鈥淭ownie鈥� I remember running into a bank of nettles, thinking it was just long grass! I soon learnt the value of dock leaves in helping to take away the pain! Also, after a long Sunday walk with the Shirt family I remember their son carrying me across the local river on his shoulders so that I didn鈥檛 get wet.

My father wanted our family to be together whatever the outcome so I returned home after only one month. We lived in a terraced house, no. 208 Oswald Road, some 200 yds. from the local railway line and an Anderson Shelter was built in our back garden. During the air raids in the autumn of 1940 the shrapnel used to ping off the exposed metalwork of the shelter, and, after one raid I was given part of the fuse setting ring off an anti-aircraft shell and it was still hot!

In 1941 we moved into my grandparents鈥� house, after their deaths, to join an unmarried aunt. This was at no. 105 Oswald Road, some 400 yds. along the row of terraced houses on the other side of the road. This house only had a small back garden so the area under the stairs was strengthened to provide shelter. During air raids I would sleep there, together with our cat which would purr so loudly that it was sometimes difficult to make out the droning engines of the German bombers. During the raids in September 1941 some friends of ours were bombed out and came to our house in the middle of the night. The bombers must have been following the railway line and aiming for the Manchester Road bridge which also carried large mains water pipes. One of the land mines they dropped that night also landed on my father鈥檚 allotment alongside the railway 鈥� the crater was immense to a small boy鈥檚 eyes, and another totally destroyed four houses on Cheltenham Road near the road bridge with a lot of people killed and injured. There was also another land mine which dropped on Newport Road ( about 录 mile away ) with similar damage and casualties.

The following year the four of us moved to a nearby semi-detached house in Kensington Road 鈥� no. 48 ( rented like the others ) 鈥� this also had a reinforced area under the stair with a blast wall outside and had plywood blackout shutters on the stairs as well as black curtain liners at all the other windows.

Initially my father was an air-raid warden in the ARP then later became a member of the Home Guard. He kept his rifle in the hall wardrobe at home but was not allowed to have ammunition because there was a child in the house. During his work in nearby Salford he regularly did fire watching duty overnight and then cycled home for breakfast, often past the damage created by the night鈥檚 bombing, and then went back to do his day鈥檚 work. I can remember seeing the red glow in the sky after the raids had passed and wondering what damage and casualties there had been.
It was in late1944 that we had a Doodle-bug raid and I did seen one pass across the sky 鈥� apparently they were launched from German aircraft over the North Sea.

Memories 鈥� apart from the adults always seeming tired, rationing and a fairly frugal diet 鈥� things like dried egg for home made sponge cakes, I didn鈥檛 realise until many years later how deep-seated some things were. When as an adult having a garden of one鈥檚 own and growing sweet peas 鈥� when they flowered in late summer the scent took me straight back to the garden of Mr and Mrs Shirt, and then a few years ago I visited the Eden Camp war museum near York and their wartime air raid re-creation with the sirens followed by the throbbing drone of the German Bombers - this was so realistic that I found it so disturbing that I felt compelled to leave the exhibit immediately. You just don鈥檛 know what is lurking in the mists of your memory.

Brian Prickett ( Now 71! )

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