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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Elizabeth Perez of Stockport Libraries on behalf of Edwin Smith and has been added to the site with his permission. He fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

When it fell, we were all in bed asleep. By “all”, I mean our small family, my Mother, my Father, and me in the Box Room, with all those aircraft recognition pictures on the wall.

The first I knew was my Mother shaking me from my sleep. “Come on,“ she was saying, “they’ve dropped a bomb!” “Dropped a bomb?” I thought sleepily, “Who?” I remember the cold night, and shivering as I pulled on my clothes. I could hear my Father somewhere downstairs. “That WAS a bomb”, he was saying, “and not very far away either.” “COME ON”, my Mother said, and in my semi-conscious state I was bundled from my bedroom and down the stairs.

There was no central heating in those days, well certainly not in our house, and the living room was cold. There were ashes of last night’s fire, and the square empty table with its green velvet cloth, that had tassels all round. Even the colourful Christmas decorations looked slightly forlorn, as they hung from the four corners of the room to the centre of the ceiling.

My Uncle Henry, killed in 1918, looked down on me from his picture. A handsome kindly- looking man in his soldier’s uniform. It was one of those pictures in which the subject's eyes seem to follow you, and I used to move about the room to see if he was still watching me. But as I say, the eyes were kindly, and I didn't mind when I found that he was. Because of the family likeness, people used to think it was my Father, and I would sometimes feel a pang of disappointment when he would say “No, not me, my brother, Henry.” As far as I was concerned, my father was just as heroic, and I used to let my friends think it was him, just to compensate!

I was still contemplating the sprig of holly that my Mother had placed on his frame, when she suddenly took me by the arm, and thrust me under the table. “Now you stay there, and don’t move.” she instructed. I couldn’t help but notice that her face was wearing that “You disobey me at your peril” expression.

Through the tassels, I watched her feet as she moved agitatedly about the room. I remember thinking how pretty they looked in her new carpet slippers. She started to change them for something more practical “Where HAS he gone now?” she asked. She meant my Father, who was still temporarily missing. Suddenly I was afraid for her, and I begged that she should join me under the table. She smiled at me, and was soon holding me close to her, whilst still grumbling mildly about my Father’s continued absence. But I wasn’t too concerned, she felt soft and warm, and I was already continuing my rudely interrupted sleep.

In the meantime, my Father, still convinced of the bomb’s nearness, was in the adjacent field. “It’s here somewhere”, he told his still doubting companions. He was soon proved correct, when a short time later they felt unusually soft ground beneath their feet, and with the aid of torches, found themselves to be standing on the edge of a very large bomb Crater!

The Police and the A.R.P. were summoned, and very soon afterwards the Military Bomb Disposal Squad arrived in a hugh army lorry. “It’s unexploded”, announced the young Army Officer. “I want the first fourteen houses evacuated!” “It went off”, my Father interjected. “I was in the last “lot”, I know high explosive when I hear it.” “The responsibility is mine”, replied the young officer, “The first fourteen houses must be evacuated! I do hope you will all co-operate. In the meantime, I am going back to have another look. Look after the Sergeant, get them moving.” “Isn’t he posh”, said someone. “He’s also very brave”, smiled my Father grimly.

With a few belongings gathered together, I remember being guided through the front door. Our cat, no doubt occupied with her nocturnal prowling, was absent. “Don’t worry about her”, my Mother told me, “She’s well able to take care of herself.”

It was now that I began to hear the melancholy, but ominous wail of the air raid sirens, and saw the vivid red glow in the sky to the north of us. There was the “rumble” of falling bombs, and now and then, the lighter “crack” of anti-aircraft fire. The beams of searchlights probed the sky in search of their prey, but by this time the sky was so intensely illuminated that the searchlights seemed quite pointless. There were small black objects, which seemed suspended and motionless in the orange glare above the burning city. These were German bombers, and it was difficult to imagine that they were the cause of the death and destruction below. The acrid smell of burning, the noise now and then rising to great crescendos, the vivid colours in the sky, all adding to the awful spectacle! I could not know it then, but I was witnessing the start of the Manchester Blitz. “What a Christmas present!” Somebody said, “Lord Haw Haw said they would be coming for Manchester!”

Eventually we, and the other residents of our road, found ourselves evacuated to the local cinema, “The Alexandra”. It was here that I had delighted in watching “Robin Hood” splendidly rout the Sheriff’s men from Sherwood Forest, dispatch the hateful Prince John, and restore England and the throne to Richard Coeur de Lyon. Hadn’t it been magnificent!! Now, alas, Robin had gone off to some other cinema, in some other town, and the poor old “Alexandra” with its dim lights, silent walls, and long rows of empty seats, seemed cold and lonely. Our hushed voices echoed eerily, and the cinema seemed almost apologetic, as if caught without her make-up, and saying “Well I can’t be glamorous ALL the time, can I?”

“Forthcoming Attractions” the notice said, and I wondered whether we might see a film, free of charge. “Be quiet”, said my Mother gently. Meanwhile the adults talked in little groups. I listened to whispered conversations amongst the men … “Salford’s taking a battering.”…”Market Street and Deansgate are on fire.”…”Victoria Station has caught it” and so it went on as the news filtered through. As is usual in these situations the women tended their children, one moment scolding, the next reassuring a bewildered or anxious child. As for myself, I remember that being slightly bewildered by these sudden and startling events, I actually felt no fear. My Father had promised me that all would be well, and hadn’t my Mother agreed with him? This was all the reassurance that I needed, for in my child’s mind HE was infallible, and SHE with her lovely smile, was the sweetest of all women. THEY would never deceive me. Such was my faith in them! What a wonderful gift a happy childhood is!!

We eventually left the cinema to stay with friends, whilst in the meantime, the gods decided whether or not our house was to be blown up. We little knew how good the gods had been to us that night, for the bomb had, after all, exploded on landing. It had been a freak explosion, the blast having gone across the empty field, and away from the houses. A railway signal box about three hundred yards away, was covered
in sand and had some windows broken, but there were no casualties. By all the laws of reason, we should have been killed. But “reason” had not prevailed, and therefore we survived.

We left our friends’ house, and on arriving home, were greeted by our cat. She was waiting in the front garden, and was wearing a very haughty expression that said “I don’t know what all the fuss is about, but I’m glad you are back, all the same.” She rubbed herself across my Mother’s legs, then with her fine Persian tail held aloft, and purring happily, she led us in through the front door.

As is typical with schoolboys, those of us who had been evacuated were the heroes of the hour, and we looked with some disdain on those who had not. We told long exaggerated stories of our adventures in the cinema.

When at last, we were allowed near the Crater, we stood wide-eyed. NEVER before had we seen such a large hole! Since my Father had been the first to find it, I felt a certain “ownership”. I thought that it was “my” Crater.

Eventually the war came to an end, the years passed by, but the Crater remained.
For generations of children it made a lovely sand-hole to play in, and years later when I had reached manhood, I would often pause when I heard a small child talk of playing in the Crater. Little they knew of the bomb, they didn’t even know why it was called “The Crater”. But then, why would they? Eventually the field was levelled, and in a few swift manoeuvres, a huge bulldozer had filled in the Crater. “My Crater”, the great adventure of my childhood GONE forever. The last evidence of the bomb that SHOULD have killed us, but didn’t. I felt quite sad. It had been my friend that Crater. But on second thoughts, it could well have been my epitaph.

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