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This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Elizabeth Perez of Stockport Libraries on behalf of Brenda Lees and has been added to the site with her permission. She fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

This is an extract from a letter I sent to my husband, who was away in the Services. I wrote to him immediately after the Manchester Blitz ended on Christmas Eve.

"We are sitting around in the light of the fire and oil lamps - waiting for - I don't know what. It has been chaos. Every street in Old Trafford is shattered. Some houses are gone completely and those that are lucky enough to be standing have no windows or doors. We have no electricity and gas. Fortunately the water is still on, so we can have our cups of tea - boiled on the fire. No wireless to tell us what is happening. Many a time we thought our house was caving in on us, but we were one of the lucky ones. We were cramped in the cellar for twelve hours, with our limbs trembling with fright.

Planes kept roaring overhead continuously with bombs whistling down. My mother, a little deaf, kept saying she could hear the planes, when there were none and all was quiet; when we told her they were overhead, she only thought we were fobbing her off so she wouldn't be frightened. We also heard the Ack Ack of machine guns as our men were getting back at them. We were told later a plane was brought down on Old Trafford Cricket Ground and one on Exchange Station, with German pilots wandering at large. Next day, time bombs were going off regularly all day and our Christmas turkey was decorated with broken glass. One day I actually watched a dog fight in the sky - a Spitfire chasing a German bomber. He chased him off over the horizon and he let his bombs drop on the way."

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