Beryl Stevens (nee Knight)’ Wartime Memoirs (born 25th June 1926)

I remember very well the day war was declared, we sat and listened to the announcement. My Mum shed a few tears. It did not mean a great deal to me although I was certain bombs would drop on us that night. My Mum having lived through the First World War at the same age as me knew there would be many lives lost as she lost her brother with shell shock in that war!

I was still at school; there were boys and girls on separate floors. We went to school on a tram which was great fun as being at the terminus we could alter the wooden seats round for the new direction.

The early part of the war did not affect us much. My father built an underground shelter in our garden after the 1938 scare. It was small but we did not mind the thought of using it. It was built in sandy soil and my father knew what he was doing, as he was a qualified architect and had served in the Royal Engineers laying trenches in the First World War!

When the bombing in Manchester started my parents were concerned for our safety, an uncle wanted us evacuated to join him in America but we were taken up to stay with relatives at Thornton Hall in Glasgow. That was great fun as it was in the countryside and they had Polish airman billeted with them. They had managed to fly out of Warsaw as it fell to the Germans; one had been the Conductor of the Warsaw Orchestra before serving his country. Much to our amusement one of them was called Marian, which is a girl’s name in my book!!!

When the blitz arrived, my older brother who at seventeen had just joined the home guard used to do fire duty on the roofs in Manchester city. They had to deal with incendiary bombs. Once he was on duty at Woolworth’s in Deansgate when an oil bomb fell on the roof. There was nothing they could do as the oil and fire just spread and it was burnt out.

On one occasion my brother turned up for work and was informed that a fellow trainee had not arrived. He was sent to his home in Hyde Manchester only to find the whole row of houses where he lived had disappeared in a crater. People used to shelter in cellars in the city only to be gassed by broken pipes.

My father managed to get a move to Ashton-Under-Lyme which was a safer area and a new school. It was still a mixed school, girls upstairs and boys downstairs and high railings between the two. I really enjoyed my time there. I was nearly fourteen and used to help the head teacher Miss Cockcroft to collect the savings money.

Children bought stamps and when they had enough they could buy a savings certificate. We also had a practice bomb attack. My label said internal injuries and I was put on a stretcher with a tie round my neck and under my knees. I thought I would fall off but didn’t. We also had to regularly sit with our gas masks on to do a lesson and I can remember queuing up to have cod liver oil with a little concentrated orange juice to kill the revolting flavour!!! We also spent one afternoon a week gardening, we had to walk to the area and had to put clogs on. I didn’t like that much as they were always filthy muddy from previous children.

In late 1942 my father moved us to Wrexham, which was considered an even safer area. It was full of service men and women and we were very close to the airport, which was training pilots to land and take off. It was called “circuits and bumps” and it took place mainly at night. I used to help to serve at the WVS canteen and we were always busy.

My older brother was in the Royal Marines and very proud of his country. He had always wanted to be at sea. We did not know until after his death on April 25th 1943 at just nineteen years old that he was secretly training to be a gunner on a landing craft. He sadly lost his life with eighty other young men when two landing crafts training in the Irish Sea encountered stormy gales. The boats were faulty and due to a design fault they took in water but we were not allowed to know this until fifty years after his death. They all had life jackets but the rocky coast tore them and only two survived.

Life went on. My mum was always very protective of me after my brother died and I was not allowed the freedom of the young people today. I never went to the cinema on my own. My parents bought me a bike to get to work and it had to be black because no coloured ones were available – everything had to be basic “utility”. I used that bike to see a bit of the countryside. We did have a small car but as not for essential use we were not allowed petrol. When my parents were threatened that the tyres would have to be removed to provide rubber to help the war effort they had to sell the car. It broke my mum’s heart to see it go because it was her car. We then had to walk or use an old rackety bus to get the shopping done.

Towards the end of the war I had to do war service and I joined the Royal Observer Corps. As we had a headquarters at Wrexham I was able to live at home and did shifts. On the night shift if not busy half of us were able to rest on straw palliases called “biscuits” in bunks. It was very interesting work and as my boyfriend was training to be a pilot in South Africa I liked the fact that we were helping the air crews fly safely in hilly countryside!

When the war ended there were celebrations but we felt that there were still so many in danger in the Far East and of course my mum, dad, younger brother and I knew that my loved brother would not come home.

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