大象传媒

When Chamberlain informed Hitler that a state of war existed between Germany and
Great Britain, I was eight years old. When peace returned in 1945 I was fourteen and
into my first pair of long trousers. Here are some of the things I recall from that time.
Before the War, boys where I lived, collected cigarette cards glass marbles
and postage stamps. This changed, most lads procured army belts on which we
secured regimental cap badges, elder relatives, on leave, showed us how to scrub the
belts until they were almost white and brasso the badges until they glinted, a full belt
was a grand thing to have, wish I鈥檇 saved mine, I wonder if any still exist?.
At the start of the war my family, friends and neighbours went up to Clowes
Street barracks to see the local T.A. march, with trumpets blaring, snare drums rat
tatting, I remember the lad with the big drum wearing a leopard skin pinny, thumping
away with gusto. Away they marched to Victoria railway station, in Manchester, all of
them smiling. Most of them didn鈥檛 come home, perishing in Belgian, France and
Dunkirk.
When the bombing started, instead of cloth bags full of marbles, we had tins
full of shrapnel, the jagged shards of metal from bombs and shells, they were easy to
find, the streets were littered with them, most mornings after an air raid. I saw my
first dead people, about this time, placed on the pavement where the heavy rescue
squad had placed them, as they dug in the bombed ruins for survivors and bodies.
There was a variety of air raid shelters. Brick street shelters, entry shelters, in
between the back to back houses, anderson shelters dug into gardens, table shelters
made from heavy steel with mesh sides. I suppose the daffiest shelter was the cellar of
the local factory, built on the banks of the river irwell, they made candles it was full
of great vats of tallow and other highly combustible oily stuff.
To combat fires there was emergency water supply EWS tanks, fire buckets
full of sand and stirrup pumps, everybody had a gas mask, carried in a cardboard box,
one could make rude noises, whilst wearing them, by blowing hard.
I will end now, so many memories, I shall have to write them some time.

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