Manchester Blitz - Christmas Eve, 1940

Manchester Blitz Christmas Eve 1940

Dot Gandy aged 12, her sister Renee aged 13 stayed over at Granny White's house; she lived in Devonshire Street, Hulme with her daughter (the girls' Aunt Sally), and their mother, May Gandy. Granny's older daughter was on night work - no one knew what kind of work (secret). There were lots of women who did it but only names were ever mentioned.

They watched Auntie take her net curtains down, get a window leather, sprinkle vinegar on it... the windows shone. Dot and Renee went out to play in the air raid shelter; it was the basement of a cinema called 'The Triangle'.
The family had a bunk bed as most other families did. If you had a Penny, the air raid warden would make you a hot Oxo drink in a tin mug (very exciting).

The shelter started to get quite full, the girls decided to go for their Gran & Auntie, the warden told them no-one is allowed out, only in.

Listening to the older men and women saying things like "Someone is getting a bashing". An old man would tell them "That's the Ack Ack guns." People were still coming in, so the girls sat on their bunk bed.

Then in came Granny & Auntie, they were covered in debris; their hair was full of dried plaster. Poor Auntie was covered in blood. Glass had shattered down the side of her head; it left her permanently deaf in her left ear.

Auntie had said she heard a whistle getting closer; she realised it was a bomb on the way down. She had just managed to get Gran on top of the cellar steps, but she didn't have chance to close the door, so the glass vases must have exploded.

All Granny cried for was her canary; the warden told her that when the 'All Clear' siren sounded, he would go and have a look around.

The 'All Clear' sounded, but you couldn't go out until told to. The warden came in with a flattened birdcage. There was a little black bird inside (covered in soot).

Mother came in, she was in shock, they had all been locked in. She'd never work nights again, she said. Women were screaming and fainting. Being a widow, no pension, she got extra for working nights. From there she went to spraying camouflage Jeeps at Rootes in Deansgate. I think she got £3 a week.

The canary lived until 1948. He used to bury his beak in his damaged wing for years, and you could hear the 'ping' of shards of removed glass that were buried in the wing.

Granny blamed the Coal Miners for the bird's death. There was no coal achieved because the Miners were on strike, to keep warm, you had to take a pram and walk to the bottom of Medlock Street for coke.

Granny cried in the hand towel (hankies weren't big enough, she said). 'He's been all through the Blitz, Adolf didn't get him, but the bloody Miners did.'

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