大象传媒

My War in SHEFFIELD.
By Denis Lumb.

Thursday the 12th of December 1940 was a normal schoolday and nothing different to an eight and half year old until 7pm.
At 5.30pm my dad Eric left for work. He was a skilled electrician on the arc furnaces at Thomas Firth and John Browns Sheffield Steel Works. Because they were making steel for the war he was exempt from the armed forces and was employed to keep the electric furnaces working 24 hours a day.He was on the night shift 6pm to 6am.
At home my mother Doris was repairing a damaged easy chair on the table and my 15 month old brother Allen was asleep in his pram. He was suffering with measles.I was reading my comic.
About 7pm the sirens sounded and we put on the light in the cellar and i released the bolts on the connecting doors.These doors had been put in to connect all twelve houses on one side of Rock Lane in Pitsmoor,Sheffield. Two of the cellars had been reinforced so that all the family's could get together in safe cellars. Only one problem, Allen had got the measles and we could not mix with the other children,so we sat at the bottom of our cellar steps on our own.
All was well.The bombs started to drop quite soon and they got nearer and louder and about 8pm one bomb was dropped some 50 yds away from our home in Fitzalan Street. Our light went out and all the pots,pans and food on the shelves on the cellar head came down the stone steps on to us.This was my first experiance of fear in the war.We struggled to find candles and matches. Some one from the reinforced cellars came to see if we were ok but did not ask us to join them because of the measles.The bombs kept dropping and were all round us.It appears that the bombs were meant for the steelworks some two miles away from our home but they were off target and dropped on our homes and the city centre.
My dad was on fire watch on the roof of the steel works and could hear and see the bombs dropping on Pitsmoor.
After midnight things quietened down a little in Pitsmoor but bombs could be heard going off until 2am.By then we had no electricity,no water and no gas. my dad then came home to see if we were ok,as he had heard that many houses had been hit near by.We were shaken but alive.Many people did not survive.We had all our windows broken and dirt and soot was everywhere.
Around 4am the all clear sounded and i was put to bed while my parents cleared up the broken glass.
Next morning in daylight the scene was terrible.Everywere you could see rubble,mud dirt, burst sand bags,broken glass,smoke coming from the homes that had been hit,water shooting in the air from burst pipes and occasionally a delayed time bomb going off, an unforgettable sight.
By 9am everyone was clearing up and helping each other.We children could not go to school and did not for about 3 months.However we started to collect pieces of shrapnel from the bombs and shells,these became our prizes of war.This shrapnel along with a burnt out incendry bomb which had been put out by my dad on the roof of Firth Browns were on show on our mantle piece for some time to come.
By lunch time the water bowsers were on the street and we all queued with buckets,kettles and anything that would hold water.Later stand pipes were erected and we had to get water from them.
On that night of the 12th of December 1940 nearly 300 hundred planes attacked Sheffield and over 700 people died.Many were injured.At least 12 bombs dropped in a radius of 100 yards from our home.We had been the lucky ones.
On the 15th the bombers came back and this time the steel works were hit along with more homes but not as severe as on the 12th.We had gone to live at my aunt's home in Walkley and were outside watching the bombs exploding on the works some 6 miles away.
in the space of 3 days that was My War.After that Sheffield only had sparodic raids and an odd bomb being jetisoned by the planes on or after raids on Manchester and Liverpool.
on a lighter note all my friends and family were avid Sheffield Wednesday fans and when we found out that Sheffield United had been bombed,we all cheered and for some time we sang a little ditty about Hitler bombing United.

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