A City in Flames: Hull, As Seen Through a Child's Eyes

1 County Bridge, Rempstone Road, Hathern, Leics LE12 5JN

Hull, May 7 1941

I was nine years old, and was well used to nightly air raids. I had gone to bed as usual, but was awakened in the early hours by the noise of gunfire from the anti-aircraft guns on the nearby Costello Playing Fields.
I was amazed to see that my bedroom walls had changed from cream to a most beautiful cerise pink. I really thought my dad had repainted them while I slept. I was still gazing at them when he walked in. He told me to get up immediately because there was a big air raid.
I pointed to the walls. ‘How did you do that?’ I said. He looked. Then, instead of chasing me out of the room and down the stairs, he drew me over to the window and threw back the curtain.
For several seconds I stood there, gazing in awe at the spectacle of the city going up in flames. Searchlights were busily raking the sky, slanting around the cloudscapes looking for enemy planes which, when picked up, looked like silverfish as they twisted to avoid capture. Beneath them several fires burning around the city centre cast a lurid, smoky glow over the rooftops.
I saw all this with mixed dread and excitement, but it was nothing compared to another sight that caught my eye and literally mesmerised me. In fact I can say that never in all my life (I am now 69) have I seen anything to match it for sheer beauty. The Germans had prefaced their attack by dropping a circular pattern of chandelier flares which now hung like angelic lanterns under the high ceiling of clouds, lighting up the city like day.
All this may have happened with thirty seconds, but I remember it as one of the most awful, yet beautiful things I have ever seen.
I can talk about evacuation too, but I’ll let this suffice for now, as it is my abiding memory of the conflict . . . except for having my ears boxed for pinning a Picture Post centrefold of the Bismarck to my bedroom wall!
Yours etc.,

John Whitehead

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