Air Raids

Air Raids

“Dad, Dad,” “whatever is it now son?” “What’s that big paper drum thing in the hall for?” “You’ll see, but it’s not a drum, so don’t get excited.” A few days’ later I come in from playing to see the drum had been opened and inside were rolls of brown paper. Mum and Dad’s voice was coming from the back living room and on investigating I find them sticking it in strips on to the windows, I didn’t really understand what was going on, anyway I had important things to do with Harry and the gang. Later I was told that this was to protect us from flying glass in the event of bomb blasts. Whatever a bomb blast was? Soon, everywhere you went you could see these brown diagonal crosses on windows. Black-out material was another item to invade our homes; Mum had to make curtains for all our windows and the front and back doors.
Before a door was opened at night the light had to be turned off first; because if the Air Raid Patrol warden saw the slightest chink of light he would shout, “PUT THAT LIGHT OUT!” To regular offenders many expletives were added to his command, and a summons usually followed which carried hefty fines. All motor vehicles had to have their lights covered with what looked like a gentleman’s’ top hat with two slots to let a little light out. This rule also applied to motor bikes and cycles. The problem was that road accidents rose considerably during the blackout.
For the first few air raids Mrs. Long invited us to share her shelter as we didn’t have one, no doubt she welcomed the company as Mum said Mr. Long had been called up or he’d volunteered straight away when war broke out. Before going into the army he erected a steel shelter in their lounge, it was the height of a table and made with heavy angled steel corners and a top of thick steel, the sides and bottom were made of heavy wire mesh. These were called Morrison Shelters after the government minister, Herbert Morrison. It looked like a great big rabbit hutch, when a mattress had been put in.
The period during the latter part of 1939 and the early part of 1940 became known as the phoney war, because nothing happened. It was a period of uncertainty. The Government, Mum said were always telling us to save this and that during the war, amongst them was paper. They sent out leaflets for nearly everything, Mum told me years later she called it bureaucratic drivel. It became well known as ‘Bumf’ (bum fodder- lavatory paper).
Some weeks before Christmas 1940 I found Dad digging a massive hole. “Why are you doing that Dad?” “To put the shed in,” he answered. I couldn’t understand this, so I went to call for Harry. When I got home the shed had been dismantled and he was re-building it in the hole; this would be our air-raid shelter. Soon we started to have bombing raids, the wail of the siren warned us that the German bombers were on their way and sent us scurrying for shelter. We soon got to call the siren ‘Old Moaning Minnie’.
Outside Peter Davies’s house a brick shelter had been built. I’d been to the shops for Mum, and as I turned into our road, ‘Wailing Minnie’ sounded. As if by magic an ARP man appeared and herded me into this refuge, I was in the dark. A few local people came in, thank goodness some of them had torches, the trouble was that these didn’t give out much light; they had by law, to have tissue paper over the front end secured with and elastic band.
During the time of these alterations we had our first air raid, the night of July 29th, the day after my birthday. I hadn’t been in bed long when I had to jump out. This was the first time we took advantage of the promised refuge in Mrs. Longs Morrison shelter.
When Mum heard the air raid siren she’d put the kettle on and make a flask of cocoa, just thinking of it I can smell it.
Geoffrey and I always wanted to play with his train set, or think up some other excuse to escape the imprisonment. During the day of 8th August 1940 we heard the siren start wailing. The Germans were back, but instead of bombs a load of propaganda leaflets. This was Hitler’s ‘Last Appeal to Reason’, wanting us to withdraw our declaration of war on his country.
During the later part of 1940 Manchester and surrounding districts suffered heavy bombing and incendiary raids. We had twenty five in total, with just two that took place during day-light or late evening. The majority lasted for a few hours either side of mid-night.
Two days after the raid of the 16th December, Dad was as pleased as a dog with two tails as he pronounced to us all, that he had, at last finished our shelter. We all trooped out to explore our haven from the ‘Hun’. It was all rather cosy, he’d built a set of bunks beds, a small drop down table was fitted to one wall and the two deck chairs were laid upon one of the beds. In one corner stood a paraffin heater and on the table, the ubiquitous matches and candles. Mum stocked a small box with a few emergency food items that she could spare, “Let’s hope we’ll never need this lot,” she said; however she did have to raid it on numerous occasions. An enamel bucket was kept near the kitchen sink so she could take fresh water down into the shelter with us.
Our next door neighbours, the Smith’s only had a small garden, it was even smaller after Mr. Smith installed an Anderson shelter in it that was delivered on a lorry in bits; these may have been the first ‘build it your self kits’, made from corrugated steel sheets; (known as corrugated iron for some unknown reason). The curved roof was designed to give better protection, and was covered with sandbags and earth.
Wooden steps led into it, and Mr Smith had fitted it out similar to what Dad had done. With its curved roof it felt cosier and a lot safer and deadened the noise of exploding bombs better than ours did.
The day before Christmas Eve was uneventful as far as I was concerned, Dad had retrieved the Christmas tree from the attic and it had been decorated by Mum and was now waiting for the celebrations to begin. We’d finished our tea when Dad came back into the kitchen, “Right, I’ll be off then Nellie.” “Don’t let Fletcher upset you now,” says Mum. Dads through the back door before she and Muriel start to laugh. All I knew was that Dad was off to do Home Guard duty.
Minutes later Wailing Minnie started, Mum said a naughty word and damped down the fire, put the kettle on the gas stove and did other things at twice the speed of Father Christmas on his slay. Very soon we would be trying out our new shelter.
The night sky was very bright and clear and I looked up at the sky, a German plane filled my vision heading for a small fluffy cloud: A sight I will never forget. It was flying very low, “Look Mum” I shouted as I pointed up, we could see the swastika on its tail; this was very exciting for me. Well it was, until I saw the guns sticking out of the front end and I thought they’d start firing at us.
Mum was carrying the bucket of water; Muriel had the flask and a few other things. Common sense dawned, just as they were both disappearing into the shelter, I dashed down rather fast bumping into Muriel in my eagerness for safety. Even the seriousness of the situation didn’t stop her having a go at me. Years later I was told bomber would have been a Heinkel on its bombing run over Manchester, or it could have been going in to mark the area for the bombing raid.
This was the first of two consecutive nights of very heavy bombing which started on Sunday at 6.38 p.m. and on Monday at 7.15 p.m. on the nights of December 22nd and 23rd 1940.
These raids become known as the Manchester Blitz. Ten hours the pounding went every night till five the following morning. On the first night the bombs seemed to be falling in our garden and the surrounding vicinity they were that close. Mum said,
“Trust your father to be playing ruddy soldiers on a night like this!” I think she was quite frightened, not just for herself, but also for Muriel and me.
The shelter was vibrating as the bombs exploded, dust and what ever else started to cascade down from the shed roof timbers and I think Mums confidence in our refuge diminished rather quickly. Putting the little oil light out, Mum opens the shelter door, and climbs up a step until her head was pocking out over the top of the low sandbag blast wall entrance. Except for the moonbeams penetrating the gloom of the shelter, Muriel and I sat on the bunk beds, poised to dash round to the Smith’s on Mums command. “What are you doing now Mum,” asks Muriel. “Waiting for a Warden to pass, now hush.” She stood and waited, and waited, until eventually an air-raid warden passed by the front gate.
Except for a few muffled explosions in the distance all was quiet for a few moments. It was Mum who made us jump out of our skins with her sudden “HELLO THERE, Hello, our shelters not very good and I don’t feel safe with my two children down here, can we go in next doors? I think she must have frightened the passing firewatcher half to death. “Sorry madam, I daren’t risk it, not with what’s coming down tonight, especially with your kids in there. This is the worst one we’ve had up to now, and there’s lots of shrapnel flying about, sorry!” So we had to stay where we were.
A few minutes later we heard and felt an almighty explosion, the shed shook, “Oh my God, what ever are we going to do,” exclaimed Mum. She found out later that a land mine had demolished a house on Westwood Avenue, opposite Riddings Road, near where the Barracuda training plane had crashed.
The following morning Mum spoke to Mrs Smith and explained our situation; Mrs Smith told her that she’d welcome the company as Mr. Smith was also playing soldiers. The following night they were on duty yet again; Mum was not too pleased, but I’m sure she felt a lot better knowing at least we were all a lot safer now.
Dad was a little bit hurt that he hadn’t provided a safe haven for his family. We spent many a night in Smith’s shelter. Whenever we were out and about, Mum would cock her ear to the sky and say “Hush, oh it’s alright its one of ours,” if the sound of the engines came to her with a continuous steady drone. But if it made a sort of Er-Er intermittent drone, Mum soon taught us to recognise that it was an enemy ‘Jerry’ plane.
The men and women ‘firewatchers’ were renamed Air Raid Precautions Wardens (ARP Wardens) later on, they played an important part during air raids as they helped to spot the incendiary bombs that caused many fires. The only protection they had was a steel helmet, a whistle and a big rattle, similar to what is used at football matches now. They used the whistle to draw attention to fires caused by incendiary bombs and the rattle to warn off life threatening dangers of a gas attack.
When at last we were able to leave the shelter, we looked across the pond in the direction of Manchester. The sky was lit with an eerie red light; just like the one I once heard Dad say was a ‘Shepherds Warning’.
I heard Mum say to Muriel, “Just look at that sky, it would be a beautiful sight, if it wasn’t for the horror and destruction that had taken place.”
Do you know, I cannot remember what we did with our dog Towser during those air raids; I hope the poor thing wasn’t left in the house. I believe thousands of incendiaries were dropped that caused and spread many fires, followed by hundreds of high explosion bombs that destroyed factories, shops and homes causing havoc and loss of life. Even a hospital was severely damaged causing bed ridden patients to be carried to safety during the continuous bombing.
On our way to school one morning as we neared the top of the station approach we could see a great pall of black smoke rising up into the air, the previous night a bomb had hit a small oil storage tank belonging to one of the factories situated on the side of the canal near to Broadheath. As the flames and smoke rose into the air, firemen tried to quench them with water taken from the canal. The water was being pumped out using large hoses and we could see the firemen keep lifting them out to clean a big basket on the end; the basket kept getting blocked with mud and rubbish from the canal bed.
Going to school one morning I stepped out of the back door and found a lump of shrapnel, it was brown with dashes of red here and there. As I was about to pick it up I wondered if it would still be hot, so I turned it over with my foot. How on earth this operation was going to tell me; well I ask you? Harry happened to be calling for me as I was examining it. “Hi’ya Harry, look what I’ve just found.” My prize find resting in the palm of my hand for his eyes to see. “What’s that then?” he say’s with slight bemusement. “It’s a lump of shrapnel; I just found it on the path.” “That little bit, you should see the big lump our Sydney found, it’ud make fifty of that skinny bit.” I fell in step with him feeling quite hurt and dejected as we walked to school that morning.
The air raids got less during 1941, only ten in that year, then on the 27th July 1942, practically two years to the day since the first attack, this was I believe the last one. They reported this as being a sneak raider who flew just above the housetops and dropped a stick of bombs in Beswick on the east side of Manchester.
Every house had to have two buckets outside their front door; one filled with sand the other with water, and for every group of houses a stirrup pump was provided. The Air Raid Wardens took charge of these; they were used to fight fires caused by incendiary bombs. ‘Get them out Quick’ was the motto. Stirrup Pump Practice was held at regular intervals when all the grown-ups taking part, sometimes pumping, or controlling the nozzle, whilst others kept up a steady supply of water.
Strange objects started to appear in various places in and around the area. There were different shapes, some being oblong others round and some square. Some were built from bricks; some were made of concrete whilst others had been built using corrugated iron panels, and even wooden ones had been built. They had large oblong areas painted yellow with large letter’s E W S painted in black on them. Another test of Mum’s wisdom was due for a test, as I wandered home I was still trying to work it out.
During June 1944 Hitler started a bombardment of a different kind; unmanned flying bombs called V1s. The Londoner’s nicknamed them ‘Doodlebugs’; they came over with a spluttering sound, the distance they flew was determined by the amount of fuel they carried. When this ran out the engine stopped, and they hung there on their little wings for a split second, then gravity took over and down they came. Sometimes the anti-aircraft guns and fighter planes were fortunate to score a hit and blow them out of the skies. We heard and saw one much to our amazement flying over Timperley, I’m not sure where it ended its dreaded journey, but someone reported that it came down near Liverpool?
Later the Germans launched another more vicious weapon. This was again directed at the unfortunate London populous, the V2 rocket. It was a one-ton bomb, but looked more like the moon rocket in the old Flash Gordon films. They reached the speed of sound; the only warning anyone received, which anyway was too late, was the slight hissing sound as it came down to earth. It took less than a second to hit the ground; the explosion came with its overwhelming horror, causing destruction over a very wide area.

From ‘TIMPERLEY BOY’ by Peter Scott - Published by Churnet Valley Books Leek Staffordshire

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.