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This story has been sumbitted to the People's War website by Pam Riding of Kirklees Libraries on behalf of Mr Geoffrey Darby and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Wartime memories

I was born in Mill Hill Hospital in Dalton, Huddersfield on 20th December 1926, the year of the General Strike and my memories are those as seen initially through the eyes of a schoolboy in Huddersfield-Moldgreen Council School and then to Almondbury Grammar School 1937-1943.
I have practically all my diaries going back to 1937 and therefore in the early 1940’s I can at least have memory reminders when perusing, especially the wartime diaries.
Luckily in some ways as children we were very mature and this helped us in the war years. Examples of this were attending Huddersfield Co-operative Society lectures at Moldgreen Congregational Church- the history of Co-operation and what it is all about. Mr Ramsden of the of the Huddersfield Co-op-manager of the Men’s Outfitting Dept. gave the lectures and we had both oral and written examinations to obtain certificates, - or at aged 10 and the second year aged 11m, other examples of ‘growing up’ experiences were-when poking your nose into a large mill as a 12 year old you would be asked if you wanted to look round and as the mill was working you would see where all the noise came from and the working conditions. Similarly in 1938 I remember passing Huddersfield Power Station with my father and large doors were wide open- and we had a good guided tour of the Power Station.
We were a close knit society with cubs, scouts, regular amateur concerts, men’s week-ends at Sunday School where men ran the Church Service that week-end and gave a concert on the Saturday night. These, for us, were at Grove Place Sunday School, down Long Lane. We lived near the top at No.25-nearly opposite a Co-op Grocery and Butcher’s Store and a good fish and chip shop! Many social evenings for children at most of the Sunday Schools with dance lessons, party games, sing songs etc.
As a cub and later a scout in the 32nd Huddersfield Group at the Moldgreen Methodist Church down Wakefield Road past Howarths Green Grocers you often helped at concerts by selling sweets and chocolates from a tray you paraded round the hall-voluntary work!
By 1937 we were getting acclimatised to war in the future-we had mock air raids and we could watch the searchlights criss-crossing in the night sky. On holiday in Belfast we had tickets to watch ‘HMS Formidable’ an aircraft carrier launched.
As Scouts we were asked to go on evenings after school and on Saturdays to Albany Mills to pack thousands of gas masks into their cardboard boxes, These, when issued, we had to take to and from school and grab them to take into the school shelters during a practice air raid and later during a proper air raid.
Mind you the war lasted a little longer than I must have imagined- September 23rd 1939 I recorded sadly, ‘HMS Courageous sunk and 600 approx killed’ but then September 25th 1939 aged 23 I recorded’ war still going on’- little did I know how long it would last!!
In 1939 I helped my father and brother to install our Anderson Air Raid shelter in the garden- the deeper it went and the more soil you had to cover it to make it safer.
In 1940 we started losing some of our school teachers at the Grammar School into the Forces- also some relatives and friends. The front lawn at Long Lane was dug up and we planted potatoes.
Again, as Scouts we were asked to go round the Mills on Saturdays with the ‘Trek Cart’ to collect waste paper and cardboard for the War Effort.
1941 was a Year of change —as early as January 9th 1941 we had an air raid lasting just over two hours with bombs dropped a few miles from Huddersfield.
Air raids occurred during school time and we spent some time in the brick shelters singing songs usually, led by our teachers. Sandbags were delivered to houses for incendiary bombs and I attended Fire Watchers lectures with my parents. We were shown the type of bombs to expect- how to tackle an incendiary bomb and also included a section on war gases. On January 14th 1941 I became a fully trained Fire Watcher —aged 14 and had pictures given of all the German bombers so we could recognise their planes.
Being a Fire Watcher entailed attending many meetings and going on a Rota System to be on call on specific nights.
With all the concerts pre-war, by 1941 we had a local Fire Watcher’s Concert Party and also an Air Raid Warden’s Concert Party with many concerts in Church Halls and school rooms.
By March 1941 air raids lasted longer e.g. March 12th 1941 Sirens go at 9.15pm and the ‘All Clear’ at 3.30am. Local anti-aircraft guns down the fields opposite Grove Place Church and at Almondbury were well used and many German planes over became far too regular an occurrence. The air raid shelter came into its own as a Fire Watcher- the stirrup pump and hose was useful to water the garden! Our local new concert party down Long Lane was called ‘The Shrapnells’ 1942. My brother joined the Naval Cadets —aged 16 and we were still attending many social evenings for young people. One of ours, a Wellington bomber burst into flames and crashed nearby. Incendiary bombs were dropped nearby and my friend was on duty and attended to one. The Royal Signals were based in Huddersfield and their dance band ‘The Certo Cits’ played at many concerts and dances at the Town Hall and Cambridge Road Baths. In May 1942 new bunk beds arrived for the air raid shelters. Many air raids were primarily aimed at Sheffield and Leeds. Anti-Nazi refugees started arriving in the town and the Czechs had a club in town. I attended their concerts and played table tennis at the Club and eventually joined their team.
In October 1942 I had to attend lectures covering new German incendiary bombs and also Sunday cinema shows to see many Civil Defence films.
December 1942- nearly 16 years of age and can work in school holidays delivering mail for the Post Office in the Milnsbridge and Manchester Road area. Luckily I was supposed to deliver near Standard Fireworks as they made and tested parachute flares. I could pick the parachutes up and mother made large handkerchiefs out of them! (still have one). What a different life it was in those days- two houses on my mail postman (temp only) told me where to find the door key and left the tea caddy, cup and saucer, teapot, kettle and biscuits-so I could go in and have a break with tea and biscuits, Yet I was a complete schoolboy stranger- how different today.
1943 saw most of my sister’s school friends visiting and staying with us on leave from the Forces. My sister Nora was born in 1924 and attended Moldgreen Council School and Greenhead High School. She went to Hull University and was asked under the State Scheme to study Aeronautical Engineering and moved on to military aircraft design at the Brough Works of Blackburn Aircraft. The Lysander was an early design.
I played football for the Grammar School (Almondbury) and we had games against the military units in the town including a large Almondbury anti-aircraft unit.
In August 1943 I left school and started my first job at Blackmoorfoot Reservoir- working at the Reservoirs of Huddersfield with Huddersfield Corporation. I was hoping to become a Civil Engineer at Digley Reservoir ( a new one) was in those days to be designed and built with direct labour all in the hands of the Corporation. The Pioneer Corps were camped under the trees around Blackmoorfoot Reservoir installing and operating large smoke canisters to conceal the reservoir. I was lucky enough to have breakfast with the soldiers- they had a bit more food than we had at home.
Later I was loaned to the Government- we had invented the ‘bouncing bomb’ to blow the dams up in Germany and I was assisting in the survey and installation of anti dive bomb nets around Blackmoorfoot Reservoir. One warm sunny day we could sit on the grass and watch a Lancaster bomber test out our installation. James Beveridge was the Waterworks Engineer for Huddersfield Corporation and lived at Blackmoorfoot Reservoir.
In 1944 work continued on the defences of the reservoir and my summer holiday was spent at Bedale, near Northallerton- living with a farmer and his family and working to get the crops in. Sad to say my first assignment was with a horse and cart to take a load of clover from field to farmyard. I got the horse through the yard gate but turned too quick and the cart knocked the gate post out!
December 1944 we had our first flying bombs over. What a Christmas for me- on December 27th 1944 I was, under conscription sent early in the morning to Aketon Road in Castleford to a ‘Bevin Boy’ hostel to train as a coal miner- that has to be another story of training and later working at the Prince of Wales Colliery with P.E. on Pontefract Racecourse. Early on I transferred to Lepton Edge Colliery and was demobbed in 1947.
We managed for food, just, during the War Years- the only time we had problems was when I began to ear more with working on the coal face. Food for sandwiches was scarce. We made many concoctions at home with war time recipe books, using the family scaled down rations. Whilst at Blackmoorfoot we had a large pot of meat and vegetables to share a one chap would shoot a rabbit to go in and I bought horse meat at a shop on the main street in Huddersfield.
We coped on clothing coupons- mother made clothing up from old curtains etc. For my sister and the milkman, one of a large family at the local Haigh’s farm, Rawthorpe gave me some useful old clothing to wear in the pit. The Haigh’s were a friend of the family.
We used the British Restaurant in Huddersfield and the one in Leeds to get a hot meal- it assisted with food rationing.
One spin off from the black-out meant we could clearly see the night sky and we learnt the name of, and where to find all the different constellations in the sky. In those we saw an amazing number of ‘shooting stars’
Hope this gives some picture of my life in the War Years with my parents — my sister Nora born 1924 and brother William born 1925 —at Long Lane Dalton.

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