大象传媒

I RECALL THE SECOND WORLD WAR AS HOT SUMMERS,GOING INTO THE AIR RAID SHELTERS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND SITTING IN SCHOOL HALF ASLEEP

The house was in a street very close to Ryhope pit, it had no heating,lighting was by gas it had two rooms down stairs and three bed rooms up stairs it did not have any heating in the bedrooms we were a family of eight,there was no running water so it did not have a bathroom or flush toilethot water was provided from a boiler that was on one side of a coal burning range on the other sid of the fire was a large ovenwher my mother did all the cooking. Water was was brought in from a stand pipe out in the street by bucket the boiler was filled then two buckts were filledto stand for cooking and washing, coal was allso carried in by bucket two or three were thrown onto a shelf at the back of the fire to be raked forward when needed then they were filled for future use.

In winter the kithen was the beat place to be,the fire was allways well stoked up so it was nice and warm, we dreaded going to bed becaus it was so cold upstairs, my mother would put the oven shelves in the beds to warm them up,my mother would have a new clippy mat on top of blankets that would be taken off when the old ones were worn out,then she would start a new one these were done in winter.

Monday was washday in the street,my mother had a hand operated washer with a wringer attac hed to it,it was hard work for her.Depending on what shift my fatherand two older brothers were in my mother wouldmy mother would still have a big dinner to make,on wash day it was panackaldy,that was the only meal she had time to make, i think the woman of that tme had a very hard life, by the time the children came out of school they had to be carefull when they came up the street not to disturb all the washing lines or it would be a clip round the ear if any of us put a mark on them, if a coal motor or store cart came into the street the woman would go out and lift the clothes prop up so they could pass under the Coo-op tried to avoid sending the dilivery carts on a monday allso the the coal motors.

Wedneday was baking day; we all looked forward to it my mother would be up early to start baking infact nearly all the housewives had the same routine, we would come from school and as we walked up the street you would see stotteys,loaves and tuffies cooling on the steps,(tuffies are bread buns), we would have one with jam on while still warm,my mother could make a meal out of anything our meals were mostly meat and two veg,she would make a mince and onion pudding sown in a peice of white linen that was kept lily white and slowly simmerd in a big cast iron pan on the coal range, the same cloth was used for a sptty dick.

As the war progressed i was going to Ryhope junior school, we were all encouraged to to help with the salvage drive that was on, all the school children would go out looking for anything that was of use to the war effet, the summers were long and hot and we loved them, sometimes we could see two air craft having a dog fight, one day my fried and me were sitting on top of the coal house when we saw two planes just off the coast starting to fight, it seemed to go on for ages and they seemed to be coming inland, then we saw smoke sput from one of the aircraft then it started to come down the other one turnd back out to seathe one that was coming donw looked like it was going to come down on us, it went over our heads then we heard it crash in the next street upwhen we ran round we saw that it had crashed in one of the gardens it was one of oursthe grown ups were all ready there and told us to keep away,we found out later the pilot was still in the cockpit.

One night we were in the shelter when my dad who was standing in the door said i can hear a bomber it sounds low and its coming in from the sea its too dark to see, the next thing was the sound of it crashing, when we were in the shelter none of us could sleep, when we went over to the pit to see what had crashed it was one of our bobers we were told later the pilot had stayed with his plane the rest of the crew must have bailed out, it had come down next to the pit yard itjust missed the houses on the hill it had hit a gang way that was used by the men going to the pit one man was on it and was killed, we all went up to see what we could get, being so youngand did'nt know any betterwe had no idea that the pilot had sacrified his life to save others,another night we were in the shelterswhen we heard the sound of a bombermy dad was in his usual posision at the door this sounds like a jerry and looks like he is going for the pit,it sounded like it was over our housesthen we heard the sound of the bombs coming downthen the shelter shook from the explosion, it frightend us my dad had dived back just before this is it was all he said, the next morning when we looked aroun d we saw that the roofs had been blown off the houses at the top of the street ,the bombs had droped on sme waste ground next to the engine sheds we were very lucky to survive.

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