蜜芽传媒

One of these outings with friends was to the Pleasure Beach. We had to walk over to Sneinton Dale and down Trent Lane to the river where this beach had been made with a few children鈥檚 amusements. I think I was eight or nine years old and had never been before; it seemed a scruffy sort of place. Some children were splashing and paddling in the river and one or two older ones were trying to swim. One of the boys got into difficulties and I watched with horror as he disappeared. Why was no one helping him I thought as I looked wildly around. Then a young girl rushed in, madly searching for him. She wasn鈥檛 a strong swimmer but managed to locate him and began pulling him out. At last two men went to help her, and I learned the boy was her brother. I was very upset and was taken home. I never went there again. A few days later I was in my class at school when the headmaster asked me to come to his office. There was a policeman there and he wanted to ask me about the trip to the pleasure park. I had to tell him everything I had seen in detail. He particularly asked me about the girl. I told him she had been very brave and had been the only one to dash into the water and save her brother, even though there had been other people watching. He was very nice to me and I felt pleased with myself as I returned to my class.

Later my mum told me the boy had drowned before his sister could rescue him and that she had received a bravery award for her action. Not that that would comfort her though.
Two of my friends during this time I was in junior school were Mary and Janet, two sisters who lived a few doors down the rise. Mum would tell me to go out and play and I would go and call for Mary and Janet. I would be a little nervous of going to the house as I was a bit scared of their mother. She was always in a bad mood and never asked me in, leaving me standing outside. She would shout 鈥淚t鈥檚 that kid again鈥�, which upset me and one day I said 鈥淚 am not a goat, I am a child!鈥�. However some time later she did ask me in. Mary and Janet had got a little brother and he was lovely. Their mum was happy and much nicer. Their father came home on leave from the RAF and all was well. The last time she asked me in to see baby Michael she took me into the front room and there he lay looking so pale and doll like in a little coffin. He had died and her short lived happiness died with him.

After a while somehow we got used to the war apart from the air raids. Being only seven when war began I soon couldn鈥檛 remember anything else, it became a way of life. The air raids were the worst things; they were usually at night when I was warm and fast asleep and I never got used to the wailing noise of the sirens and the misery of having to leave a warm bed and go out into the cold damp shelter in the garden. Our next door neighbours were deaf and my mum or one of us would have to go and bang on their door to wake them up. Mr. Fletcher was stone deaf and was always in a bad way with his nerves. He had suffered shell shock in the first world and would shake all over. He never got over it. They would thank us for waking them and retreat under their stairs until we told them the all clear had sounded.

On the night of May 8th 1941 we were all in bed apart from Bob who was with his squadron and mum who was at work on night duty. The sirens went at about 11pm and my sister got me up then went to rouse the Fletchers. There was soon rumbles and explosions to be heard in the distance and the sound of enemy aircraft overhead. My sister had to go back into the house as Eddie hadn鈥檛 joined us in the shelter. He refused to get up until my sister had hysterics. By then the noise was getting louder and flashes lighting up the sky. We were pretty scared and I cuddled Betty the dog close to me. She was wonderfully comforting, keeping completely calm all through. Some dogs used to go crazy, barking and howling distressfully, but not Betty. Suddenly we heard a voice calling, then a scuffle and glory be there was Bob, jumping into the shelter to join us.
We weren鈥檛 afraid any more, our big brave brother was here to take care of us, all would be well. While Kathleen cuddled me, Bob and Eddie kept up a lively conversation of pseudo German chatter, making us all laugh. 鈥淰ot vas dat?鈥�, 鈥淰at vas ein bumpf鈥� etc.
Bob had arrived home on leave at the start of the air raid. He was eternally grateful to the brave taxi driver who had got him home to us and hoped and prayed he would get through safely that night. I will never forget that raid. The bombs came fast and furious.

There was the scream as they descended then the ghastly explosion was terrifying. Just occasionally the scream of descent was followed by a dull thud.
My brothers explained that it was an unexploded bomb and would be difficult and dangerous to deal with. Just when we thought it couldn鈥檛 get any worse there was a crash on the thick piece of wood Bob had pulled across the entrance to the shelter, and suddenly all hell broke loose. I was told to stay back whilst my brothers dashed outside shouting. An incendiary bomb had crashed down on our make-shift door, bounced back on to the grassy garden bank and was burning furiously, setting the dry grass afire. I found out later that 鈥淭itch鈥� Amos, who lived two doors up the rise had heard our shouts and screams and thrown himself (complete with heavy sandbag) over two six foot high hedges and with my brothers鈥� help had smothered the flames. He was a hero and only a young lad. Thank God the door had protected us. Incendiary bombs were infamous for blazing more than ever when exposed to water and our shelter was always at least a foot deep in water! Sand was the only way to deal with it.
When the all clear went in the early morning of May 9th we stood outside the shelter on the charred grass and looked over towards the city. It seemed as though all Nottingham was on fire and we wondered fearfully if mum was alright. She had told us not to worry as the minute the siren sounded they were all made to go deep underground to the shelter. His didn鈥檛 stop us worrying however, and our relief was intense when she appeared safe and well. She of course had been frantic about us too. Thank God we were all safely through. This was the worse night Nottingham experienced in the blitz.

There were some tragic stories told the next day. As well as the heavy loss of life there were tales of miraculous escapes. During the worst of the bombing I had heard a tremendous noise of shattering glass and thought it was the sound of our greenhouse being hit. This was only a few feet away. However next morning it was still in tact. It was only later that I realized what had happened and what the noise had been. On Carlton Road there was a Beer-off, a small shop which sold beer by the jug full and sweets and cigarettes. The people who ran this shop were an elderly gentleman and his daughter who lived on the premises. Last night they had gone down to the cellars to escape the bombs and it had received a direct hit. Thankfully they were dug out alive and recovered. For the rest of the war they carried on the business from a little wooden hut erected on the site. However, next to the beer-off was a very large factory called the 鈥淓agle Works鈥�. This was several storeys high with scores of windows. When the bomb fell the factory received the bulk of the blast and all the windows shattered. This was the sound I had heard. Not only this but Carlton Road where these two buildings were situated was built of cobbles, huge granite stones. The blast sent many of these flying through the air and one of them crashed through the ceiling and landed on the pillow of Eddie鈥檚 bed 鈥� where just an hour or so ago his sleepy head had been lying!

Many Nottingham people lost their lives that night and 1,300 were made homeless. The Moot Hall, part of University College and Boots Printing Works were destroyed, as were St.John鈥檚 and St.Christopher Churches. Compared to cities like Coventry and Plymouth Nottingham got off lightly with 181 dead and 350 injured. 30,000 people died in London and in 1943 we shared our home with a family from London. There was an elderly lady, her daughter Mrs. Steadman and her baby . He was about nine months old. and was called Steady, presumably because of his surname. I loved him and would take him for long walks in his pram to Colwick Woods. Eventually they returned home to be with their family and friends and we lost touch. I hope they made it through the blitz and the doodle-bugs and Steady was reunitedI think I was an unhappy girl at this time and rather lonely. At one time I ran away from home, making a dramatic gesture. I felt no one loved me, no one cared. I ran off with a carrier bag of clothes and went to hide in my school. I was nine years old and had been transferred to the Pierrepoint Girls School which I loathed. I dodged the caretaker and walked around. It was so spooky and quiet and after about an hour I was so scared I went outside and hid in the grounds. It was summertime and warm, but then it began to get dark and I longed to be home. I started to walk home down the rise feeling very sheepish indeed. My mum was looking for me and had been about to call the police. I burst into tears and told her she didn鈥檛 love me so I had run away. Poor mum, she took me home and told me of course she loved me! After a loving cuddle and some supper, I was put safely to bed and told never to do such a thing again. Mum tried even harder after that to be around for me and my sister too, but it was difficult in war time.

During the early years of the war, I was becoming a 鈥榩roper tomboy鈥� as my mum said of me. I had a friend, and her name was Sheila too and we liked nothing better than playing with the boys, doing things boys did. We played a game where we ran through people鈥檚 back yards, climbed walls and over high railings to escape the chasers, getting back home(the lamp-post at the bottom of the rise) and shouted 123 before the chasers caught us. The rise where I lived was a very pleasant council estate of family houses built in 1921. They all had gardens front and back and when I walked up the steep hill from the dismal factories, shops and poor dwellings of Carlton Road and turned the corner of Serlby Rise I would breathe a sigh of happiness.

Mum would tell me not to go across the main road to play with the children who lived there. However to venture up those forbidden streets was enticing and a group of us would venture forth. Children would sit outside on their doorsteps and eye us hostilely or shout rudely at us from dark alleyways. Some of them were at school with us and we knew them by sight. They were scruffy and sickly looking and one girl had had all her hair shaved off and purple stuff painted all over her head. Mum said some children had scabies, which sounded awful. It wasn鈥檛 these streets that tempted us that way, it was the way to something really exciting 鈥� our adventure playground! At the top of these streets the houses ceased and the old brickyards began. Here the clay had been dug out leaving an area of red mini mountains and valleys, a veritable landscape of canyons and cliffs, a perfect place to play cowboys and Indians. What fun we had whooping and hollering and I would be the most bloodthirsty Indian (it was always more fun being an Indian). These were my dare-devil days, full of adventure, but then mum realized where I was going to play and the mounts, as we called them, became forbidden territory. I took no notice and carried on playing there but mum was now on the lookout! She knew what a dangerous place it was and not only for the terrain. There were some strange people up there sometimes and we would see where tramps had slept in the deserted brick kilns. It only added to the attraction of the place.

I defied my mum and went there again and again with my friends, but one day mum was waiting for me. 鈥淲here鈥檝e you been?鈥�, 鈥淛ust playing鈥� I replied. Angrily 鈥淗ave you been up the mounts?鈥�, she asked. 鈥淣o鈥� I lied. She scared me, she had a cane in her hand. She grabbed me and lifted up my dress and my pants were covered in the tell-tale red clay, which was the inevitable result of slithering around on the steep bits. The cane came down across my legs till I cried out in pain promising I wouldn鈥檛 go there again. That was the end of my forbidden adventures so I contented myself with the usual things.
with his daddy.

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