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It was a different war to the Great War, there were no serried trenches, there were few artillery barrages as such, except El Alamein. After El Alamein it was Tunis, Sicily, Normandy, the Rhine. ‘Monty’ became a real hero of the people, and was given the freedom of the City in 1947. People turned out in there hundreds to see and chear their hero, the Cromwell with the common touch. He stayed in Wakefield with his Batman Sir Richard O’Brien, a native of Wakefield, who attended Holy Trinity Church on George Street. O’Brien resided on South Parade, his neighbour being the Mayor of Wakefield at the time, Harry Watson, who had invited Monty to visit the City. Incidentally, Mrs Cresswell purchased O’Brien’s house in 1960, where the family still remain.

The real barrages were sea fights and of course the blitz where the civilians suffered the most.
What also made the war different was the lack of Pals battalions when the male youth of an entire street could be wiped out at once, at least someone had seen sense about that, and although in 1938 most of Wakefield’s 21 year olds had joined the York’s and Lanc’s at Pontefract Barracks they were soon spread about a bit.
Also there was no long casualty lists printed in newspapers or pinned up behind the post office door, the grief was allowed to private.

So movement was reduced to essentials, holidays for the most part were non existent.
That indeed would have been many children’s life in school and out of school, but outside school hours, Mrs Cresswell was fortunate in having a far more interesting life.

Her father was co-owner of a shopfitting and building company in Wakefield, and was a very energetic man. Within weeks the company was building air raid shelters in Castleford, and would not be seen by his family from Sunday to Sunday. Before this contract was complete, the building side of the company was busy starting to build army camps on green field sites at Hessle nr Hull, and near Ripon in North Yorkshire. In order to prevent the docks at Hull being bombed a decoy port was created, which involved the digging of huge ditches and building light emplacements. Another decoy, this time a town, was built for Leeds, and consisted of road ways and large bonfire emplacements.’ Incidentally, this decoy port was subject to a ´óÏó´«Ã½ 2 programme as part of the ‘Time Fliers’ series. ‘Friday was his usual day to go to the east riding, in early days this was quite a trip, to visit the two camps that the company was building, pay wages and inspect development. As time went on other contracts saw the company build cubical tank traps on the beaches between Flamborough Head and Barmstone Sands just south of Briddlington’. Mrs Cresswell and her sister were some of the fortunate children of the war because they went to the seaside many Fridays when other children could not or had never been. The party would collect the liaison officer, usually a captain, in Beverly and would pass through the sentry posts, and so paddled in the sea and saw mines being laid on the beaches, and walked along cliffs, between the ever present danger of mine fields and witnessed gun emplacements being constructed.

In later days when the ‘real’ war had started, many hours were spent in bomb damaged Beverly Barracks watching troops training. Mrs Cresswell clearly remembers her and her father having to run for their lives along with the Liaison Captain when the street that they were on was machine-gunned.
These trips to North Yorkshire did not last as long, but were equally exciting, mainly because of the great desire of the dispatch riders who guided the party about in the area to loose the part somewhere- they never managed but the party would have never found the camps without them.

Another of the companies interests at the time was the production and selling of anti-blast devices to stay shop windows, and were like spiders which were held in the centre of each side of the glass and stayed with wires to each corner, and were supposed to damp the ripples and vibrations that would be set up in the glass by an explosion.
Slowly of course these physical preparations were completed and the builders become occupied with repairing bomb damage to civilian and military, and the factory turned to from making army huts to the fittings for them, namely chairs, bunks, and bedside cabinets.

The build up for D-Day changed life for the families of those involved with Drake & Warters. The firm obtained a contract to build Landing Craft Assault. When not at School, Mrs Cresswell, was taught by a royal Navy officer to pilot the LCA’s, and together with an experienced engineer to pilot one of the pair that where usually tested together doing a measured mile on the River Aire at Knottingley. The last two years of the war, were very happy years, as the Naval officers became friends of the family, and provided lots of tennis at a friends court, theatre and other amusements in winter.

On June 16 1944 came D-Day, not a particularly happy day as good friend of Mrs Cresswell was dropped with other paratroops into Caen. He was home wounded within a week. Then on it went, pins marching across Europe again, but this time advancing. Then came Ravensbrooke, Bergen Belsen, days when the newspapers and more so the News Reels at the Cinema, the Savoy Horbury Road, the Regal, Grand Electric to name a few, made life unbearable and catastrophic for many. Then of course came VE Day, and the people of Wakefield celebrated in Wood Street outside the Town Hall. ‘At school, we assembled at the usual time in the morning, but after assembly there was a ceremony when the flag was raised on the lawn and the whole school marched down to the Cathedral for a joint service of thanksgiving with the boys from QEGS, conducted by the Provost.’

That was alright as far as it went, but what of the War in Asia? Mrs Cresswell’s, family had a cousin, a Captain on the staff at Bombay, and another somewhere in the Jungle having gone through Burma with the Chindits. A cousin by marriage a prisoner on the infamous Burma Railway, what of them and their war? What of those who fought in Italy? Mrs Cresswell’s future husband was involved in the Naval build up to the invasion of Italy and a cousin who was in the RAF, and flew sorties over the Monastery of Monte Camino.