大象传媒

Up in Hall Lane, in Moston, there was a big row of large houses. I was on my way to school and I saw a plane flying so low it was half-hidden behind the houses. We鈥檇 heard there was a German camp and it must have been from there. It was near the Four Ways Cinema and I鈥檇 been to see a schoolfriend, Margaret Middleton.

One Sunday evening, my Gran [Gertrude Jones] and I were at Corwen Avenue Mission and the air raid siren went off. They said the German planes were machine gunning from a low height, so Gran and I stayed in the church cellar all night. The next morning, we saw the burning sky and we wondered if everyone was okay at home. They, of course, were wondering the same thing about us. It was a bone of contention with Mum and Gran for years afterwards, because she thought we should have come back home and Gran said we had to stay.

That might have been the night the Victory Cinema went up. I was very upset abaout that because I鈥檇 left my best black hat on one of the seats the night before! We used to go to the Princess Cinema after that [now the site of Conran Street Market]. The manager used to pile us in, stand in front of the screen facing us at the start of the show and say: 鈥淲hat do we do in the case of an air raid?鈥� And we all used to shout back 鈥淜eep calm.鈥� Fortunately, we never had the air raid to keep calm in.

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