Submitted by Ray Oliver, Furness u3a
A frightening experience: wartime childhood
Blinds on the bedroom window are down and the darkness within is matched by the pitch-black night outside and all is silent. A 5-year-old boy lies sleeping in the bed oblivious to the world outside at such an early hour. Neither he nor his parents who are asleep in the front bedroom are aware of the arrival of unusual vehicles and personnel in the road outside the house.
After some time there is a wailing sound which quickly grows in volume and the parents begin to stir sleepily but are jerked fully awake by a violent knocking on the front door. Father gets out of bed and descends the stairs to open the front door just in time to discern a helmeted figure heading for the house next door. A growing drone is added to the wail as parents quickly dress in warm outdoor clothes and prepare a push-chair for the child. Reluctant to waken him the parents gently lift the boy out of bed and carry him downstairs wrapped in a blanket. Their efforts to avoid disturbance come to nought when an enormous detonation shakes the house and rouses him from slumber. Placed in the push-chair the little family group head quickly up the road having first taken care to secure the front door.
This scene was commonplace in the middle of the Second World War on the outskirts of a northern industrial town where many of the local businesses were engaged in manufacturing goods for the war effort. Not least of these was a large local aircraft factory producing vital major parts of the Lancaster bombers, squadrons of which became increasingly crucial in taking the war to the enemy’s homeland. To protect these manufacturing works from the frequent attentions of enemy bombers a corps of highly mobile anti-aircraft units had been deployed to respond to the night-time attacks. The unexpected detonation was the first firing of a shell that had revealed the presence of just such a unit in the road outside the house. Mobility of the guns was crucial as the muzzle flashes could give away the presence of the defences and provide clues to the location of targets so the policy of fire and move on rapidly was considered the best way to confuse the enemy above.
Meantime, despite the frightening clamour, the dash to comparative safety of the air-raid shelter was achieved as the bombs began to impact in nearby fields. How Mr Horrocks’ farm had survived the surrounding urban spread of the industrial revolution will forever remain a mystery but the Luftwaffe bomb-aimer was off-target that night and the munitions mostly missed the houses and factories. Mr Horrocks was to find next morning that some of his herd of cows had paid with their lives, no memorials for them of course.
That frightened 5-year-old was me and young as I was the memories and images remain as vivid now as they ever were. My legacy is a serious dislike of bursting balloons, exploding fireworks and, apart from it being a convenient support for one side of my spectacles, a totally useless right ear which was damaged permanently by the blasts.