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We went in ours round the corner and we’d only just sat down and they told us to get out again. A bomb had gone off and that had lifted up a foot and that had gone down again, the whole roof went up and down again. A policeman came and said, “everybody out, go and find another air raid shelter.” You were left on the street then, running in all directions, trying to find another air raid shelter, so we made for the crypt in the church (St. Georges). We were going through the street and we heard this whistling sound — when you hear a whistling sound, you get down — and we lay along the wall, the gable end of a building because if you get on the gable end and it gets hit, the wall doesn’t drop inwards, it drops outwards. So if you’re on the middle of the road, it would drop out on you. If you go right up against it, it would miss you — you might get one or two bricks on you but you wouldn’t get the full force. You were taught all things like that. Never walk down the middle if you could help it because if a bomb went off, bits used to come that way, they’d fall like a tree. You don’t want to be where the branches are; you want to be at this end because it could miss you there. There were all sorts of things you had to learn and of course, 9 times out of 10 somebody would say gas and you’d bring your gas mask and it could be a false alarm but they didn’t know it was a false alarm. You sat there an hour or two with a gas mask on. Believe me, you used to sweat cobs in them! You couldn’t talk, it used to make a blurping noise when you talked. It was funny but not at the time. When you think back at the time about some of the things that you did and what you got up to.

I was scared to death. The first time the blitz happened, when the Manchester/Salford blitz was on, then you knew the war was on. That’s when you saw death. But after a while, you got used to air raid shelters, you knew what to do, you knew where to go, you know which one you’re going to go to, “not that one, I’m going in this one.” You picked the best places for yourself. You knew it was better to go there than to go there. It’s like when you start work and you haven’t got a clue — once you get used to it, it becomes a second thing to you. That’s what it was, whatever you did, you just got used to it. The next day you’d be walking the street as though nothing had happened, although you see it happen all around you. If it come to the pinch, the people in this country were very brave because some of things you’ve seen and heard, not only here but in London, wherever, on the British Isles. You see some things that you’d have never expected to have seen before or after. You hear these places like that island, captured by the Germans and the Germans lived there. They coped eventually but I don’t know if they coped at first. It seemed as though the human being can cope with anything, once you get yourself organised.

They brought this food out, one was called Pom and there were dried egg. Big tins a foot long by about 8 inches circumference and you used to open it with a spoon like opening a tin of pickles. It was full of white powder. If you mixed the white powder with boiling water, not a lot, and just keep stirring it and stirring it. I put it on the plate with a chop and chips. You wouldn’t know the difference between ordinary mashed potato and this Pom. You didn’t even mind tasting it because you got that used to it. And then there was dried egg. You put in the frying pan a scoop in a cup and watered it down and got it thick like coffee and then poured in the frying pan. It used to go all round and then you’d give it a shake and then turn it over. And then put it on a plate, a bit of Pom, some peas and you were chuffed. You had a knife and fork dinner there and believe me it was quite good. My pal and I, Norman Taylor, we went to a place called Ringley Woods, which is not very far. We used to walk miles and we borrowed the Scout tent. We walked all the way to Ringley Woods and we knew a farm there. We asked if we could put it in his barn. He said yes and we got a small portion of this dried egg so we put it in this big can and the Pom and something else and at end of school term, all day, straight up there. They’d get the tent out the farmer’s barn and go to the river banking up there. The river ain’t half rotten — it was black. We used to swim in there — hot summers there was then. So, up came the tent and we made our own little shelter...It was brilliant. We only had the week there, we stayed a fortnight. In fact the police were looking for us, our parents had gone berserk. We used to have a belting time like that…

I was in the Scouts during the war. We used to practice first aid. We’d help old people that couldn’t walk very well, going and taking them to the air raid shelter. Little things like that. Bandaging, not nursing but bandages. Just general trying to help people who couldn’t help themselves at the time. I went on parade. As I got older, I left the Scouts and the 4 of us joined an ATC (Air Training Core) Cadet force. They had a hut (the Church hall, on Broughton Road down Whit Lane). You wore RAF uniform just like an RAF pilot. Cross Lane barracks had army cadets who wore the khaki uniform. You looked like a soldier but only a cadet. You knew all that was going on in the Army. I went in the Army. I trained in Air Training Cadets, I did a year with them. They had their own band. Around this area it was all brass bands — you’ve probably heard of Jessy the Varm? They had a brass band and used to win competitions. Pendleton Public Prize Band; they all went in the RAF and we got their instruments while they were in the RAF. So, we had our own band. They all had like a championships at Belle Vue. The eldest was 17. They all went to Blackpool with the money, £10, it was a fortune in those days and the big silver cup. We went camping on the canvas at Blackpool, Squire Gate. They used to come for us on the RAF truck and take us to Squire Gate. We went off in an Airspeed Oxford, two at a time. They had Polish Pilots. They were mad as hatters Polish Pilots because they were all Spit-Fire Pilots. As the war went on, they were lacking of Pilots, and the Polish joined in and they flew Spit-Fires and thank God they did. Thank God they came over here. It was a dog fight — you had to get out of the way. We went up in this Airspeed Oxford. There was just me, a pilot and another lad here and the dashboard was rattling like hell. It was only one window at the top. It flew us out to the Eiffel Tower, went round the tower and then went back again to Blackpool and it wasn’t far off the sea, there was a boat there. Frighten you to death. The war was still on, getting towards the end of the war. I was getting ready to go into the forces myself. We went back to camp, laid down my canvas. I used to love sleeping under the canvas. We didn’t do anything that day, only parade us marching. The next day we went back to Squire’s Gate and went up in a Dakota (a parachute plane). We they went over to Germany, they were all sat on both sides of the plane with a parachute on, one here and one at the back, and they used to hook it on a rail and they’d walk to the door and just jump. The thing would pull the cord out — in the old days you used to pull it yourself but half of them didn’t work and you got what you call a roman candle. It killed them that did. They put it onto this cord. You just jumped out of it and that’s what a Dakota was for, parachute plane. During the war, the bombs would go over and afterwards you’d drop the parachutes and that’s the way the war was won eventually. We went back to camp. We were coming home from France and they said that we were going to have to clear Blackpool sands because the wheels wouldn’t come down so we’re going to have to pancake land it. We were sweating cobs. We saw them through the window, you could see all the people coming off the sands. It was all a joke — they only did that to frighten us. When we got down there, it went right over it and to the airport and landed. He was laughing his head off, they were crackers some of them. They’d gone through that much there was no fear in them at all. Near the last day we went up in a Wellington Bomber, a very famous plane that, I liked that one, I liked them all really. But you hear them going on about these planes today, comfort, they wouldn’t last five minutes in one of them. Some of these pilots they couldn’t care less, they were mad as hatters, seen everything and done everything, they didn’t care. Anyway, come weekend we came home then, had our holiday out there. I come home and they all split up, they all went somewhere else, then I joined the army cadets on Cross Lane, for about a year and then I went in the army myself then. So I knew most of what was going on then anyway. So it was a piece of cake for me then.

When the war ended, I think I was in a place called Malvern. I’d just come out the army after that, just as the war ended. I can’t remember where I was then because I’d been all over the place really. It’d been that hectic I just can’t remember.

I can’t remember what the scout troop was called, they wore red neckerchiefs. The place was at Higher Broughton. There’s that much happened in my lifetime that my memory is beginning to go. After that I went into the Air Training Cadets, then the Army Cadets and then the Army. I was in the army nearly three years and I come out on medical grounds. I had a crash in a jeep and fractured my arm or something and I was on my way out anyway that week, so I come out and that was it. I started work back in the mill for a bit, not for long and then I started dancing and I’ve been doing it ever since.

We went to the local cinemas and the local dancehalls, that’s where I met my wife, in a dancehall. We all used to go out, what you call jazzing it in a place called Langworthy studios which is not 100 miles from here. And then there was Madam Jones’ used to be on Broad Street, near Frederick Road. That’s where I met my wife, Beattie. And there was a place in Broughton called Higher Broughton Assembly and the Rialto and so we used to tour around, the lads and girls, you know. Them were the days of rock and roll and I was rock and roll mad and so was she. In fact, we went to a school in Eccles and they did a concert of all types of dancing, on the stage this modern dancing, I can’t understand what kind of dancing it is and I’ve been ballroom dancing all my life really. At the end of it they said we’ve got a special guest for you, and they come to us and said are you ready and we said yes. It was just on our own and we had to rock and roll and jive. But they went berserk, the kids went mad they did…

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