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The Blitz on Manchester started in earnest in the winter of 1940-41. The sirens would start to wail at about 9.30pm and we would listen for enemy planes. I was 12 and getting up regularly at that time to go downstairs and sit under the dining-room table. One night I didn’t wake up, I sleepwalked!

My sister, Pamela, and I hoarded any chocolate we could find in the shops, still not rationed, and ate it when the sirens went. After we were found out it was confiscated (”Ruin your teeth.”) We had lost our Dutch courage!

One day, after a big raid, we went on the bus to Manchester to see what had happened. We were horrified to see whole areas flattened and others still on fire. Deansgate was unrecognisable and the Cathedral had been hit. My father, James Crabtree, had his solicitor’s office in Fountain Street. The building adjoining had been hit by incendiaries and the firemen were trying to stop it spreading to ‘Chapman, Roberts & Beck’, his office.

As my father dealt solely in property, the war was a very bleak time, financially. We enjoyed ‘Tommy Handley’, ‘Workers Playtime’, ‘The Kitchen Front’ and ‘The Radio Doctor.’ Plenty of humour helped our morale. Our Uncles George and Leslie were in the Forces. One was in the Merchant Navy and the other was in the Royal Engineers. We knitted for them.

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