2
25
35
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/698/26267/EBattyPHBattyAHD401113-0001.2.jpg
5bfbb57ae4d1602395a216da1fe71359
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/698/26267/EBattyPHBattyAHD401113-0002.2.jpg
c2aa6342f54cc1606d479b3f409d3791
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Batty, Dennis
Arthur Henry Dennis Batty
A H D Batty
Description
An account of the resource
Twelve items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant Arthur Dennis Batty DFM (1920 - 1941, 619060, Royal Air Force) and consists of his diary, letters and documents. He flew operations as an air gunner with 226 Squadron. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Christine Aram and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />Additional information on Dennis Batty is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/201592/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-01
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Batty, AHD
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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175, Ingram Rd.
Bloxwich
November 13th 1940
Dear Denis,
Many thanks for your last letter was glad to know you were not a close friend of soldier Jack. Well we had a bit of a scare on Monday a jerry took advantage of the low lying clouds to pay us a daylight visit. He dived out of the clouds and swept over our offices about 50’ from the ground. He dropped a 1000lb. bomb right between the two large gas containers luckily it did not explode on hitting the ground and the R.E.s soon had it out and away. Two oil bombs were also dropped but the [sic] dropped on waste ground and only caused a blaze for a minute or so. Work goes on as usual, we have had another *girl at our offices to swell the ranks of the all talk and no work brigade as that’s about all they are good for. What do you think of the fleet air arm 3 battleships and two auxiliaries
[page break]
not bad for a days work that will give Musso something to think about. Was not surprised to hear about you and Kath can see you are following in my footsteps like a true brother. Tess is going on fine she gets a regular rogue a proper woman nose into everything always talking etc. etc. Dad is on A.R.P. duty to-night so there is bound to be a raid not as it worries anyone just to let us know they havent [sic] forgotten us. Eileen is rather upset says she hasnt [sic] had a letter from you for ages so take a tip and write or you will be in hot water [underlined] when [/underlined] you come on leave. Thats [sic] all for the present so aurevoir [sic] best of luck
[underlined] Philip [/underlined].
*P.S. Elle est une belle dame – (trés Belle)
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter to Dennis Batty from brother Phil
Description
An account of the resource
Thanks him for last letter and describes a daylight German attack near his office. Two bombs dropped nearby but did not explode and were dealt with by Royal Engineers. Two oil bombs were also dropped, but these landed on waste ground. Mentions life in the office and fleet air arm attack on Italian navy. Catches up with news and gossip from home. Mentions their Dad is on ARP duty that night.
Creator
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P H Batty
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1940-11-13
Format
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Two page handwritten letter
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
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EBattyPHBattyAHD401113
Coverage
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
British Army
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Staffordshire
England--Walsall
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
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Steve Christian
Air Raid Precautions
bombing
civil defence
home front
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/334/3495/AStavesS160423.1.mp3
79fd6dc3485907437b012845478e0c3f
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Staves, Sheena
S Staves
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Shena Staves.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-23
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Staves, S
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PC: Hello, it’s Saturday the 23rd of April 2016. My name is Pam Locker and I am in the home of Mrs Sheena Staves, of ******* Cottingham, Hull. And, can I just start Sheena, by saying on behalf of the International Bomber Command Memorial Trust an enormous thank you for agreeing, to, to talk to us. Ok, so um I know that the main story that you want to talk about today is your experience as a young person of the bombing in Hull. So, would you just like to tell us a little bit about your early life?
SS: From before the war?
PC: Whatever you want to say, you know, where you lived, your siblings and so forth.
SS: We lived in Hoven [?] Road, Hull. My parents, two brothers and a sister. Both my brothers were involved in the war, one in the Navy and one in Bomber Command. My sister wasn’t she um, there you go, and my father was a fire watcher as well. I can remember the day war broke out and that evening, that night, the sirens went for the first time, everybody shot down into air raid shelters or under the table, somewhere like that, and my sister had hysterics. But I didn’t. That was just the first night and then it was peaceful for quite a while, until they started bombing.
PC: Where did you sit in the family? Were you —
SS: I was the youngest,
PC: Right.
SS: The baby.
PC: And how old were you in 1939?
SS: Well, I would be just about twelve. Yes, twelve a month after war broke out. My school was Newland High School, all girls, and it was immediately evacuated to Bridlington, but I didn’t go. I came to Cottingham School and although only being eleven, twelve I was put in the top class. And, if the sirens went I had a bolt hole, somebodies home to run to because there weren’t any shelters as early as that. But then my school came back and we went in the morning to Newland High School and the whole grammar school boys had the school in the afternoon. We didn’t mix at all, but then it gradually got back to normal and we were there full time. But um, whereas before the war you hung your coats in the cloakroom, no, they had to be hung in the school, in the classroom, and you didn’t have to change your shoes either, because, of course, if the sirens went you had to shoot out the air raid shelters, and again um —
PC: So, these were all the children whose parents had decided that they didn’t want to evacuate them?
SS: Well, a lot of them did evacuate to Bridlington, but when the school again, after the Christmas, I think they nearly all came back, they didn’t want to be, I think that probably Bridlington was as dangerous as Hull, being on the coast. But everything just sort of went back to normal, you, you, nobody panicked, we weren’t that sort of family, or people, so err, school was just back again, I think we missed one day, when the water mains were bombed in the street, so we couldn’t go that one day, but that was all we missed. We had an air raid shelter in the garden and we just went there, night after night, and it was, the blitz was on when I was taking my school leaving certificate, but you got no allowance for having been up all night being bombed. Where now they get an allowance if they’ve to a cough and a cold, I think. We got no allowance for that, but fortunately I did pass them all, but in the middle of the mathematics, arithmetic exam the sirens went and we all shot down to the air raid shelter and the teacher said, ‘don’t you talk about it,’ we don’t talk about it,’ [laughs]. We all sat there, no light, darkened air raid shelter, mud floor, [whispers] ‘what did you get for that?’ [laughs], typical. And then we went back to finish the exam in our classrooms. Nowadays that would not come off at all, but, I can very well remember going night after night into the air raid shelters, and after the third time of having gotten out of bed and going to the air raid shelter, my mother made me stay asleep and she stayed in the air raid shelter with me, while my sister was in the house on her own. Not, it was an awful problem for my mother, I think, to know whether to stay with me or my sister, but we came through it but it was unfortunately taking my exams during that time, it was a big strain being in and out of bed all night, then go to school the next day as normal. And, of course, I did lose some friends in the war, the desk next to me was just empty when you got to school and you would realise what had happened, but nobody seemed to panic over it, It was one of those things, and there’s a house at the corner of National Avenue and Bricknall Avenue, who had a huge garden at one side and that’s where my friend lived, and they took a direct hit and they never re-built that house, it’s a garden now, but when I go down there I often think of her, Brenda —
PC: And how old was she?
SS: She’d be about thirteen I think, thirteen, fourteen when the blitz was on. But you just sit in the shelter and listen to the bombs dropping and think well, that one’s missed me, and hope that the next ones do and wondering how my father was doing fire watching, because that was quite a dangerous job too. But, we got through it, you just had to. You know you see the craters and wonder how things had worked out for people and I remember, as I’ve told the girls many times, my grandma, Nana, as I called her, appeared on our doorstep one day, holding, I don’t know what you call them, but you put bottles of spirits in, it had a special name, and that was all she had left of her home, and her living, because she had a little corner shop at the corner of Mayfield Street and, I forget the other one, and she just said ‘I’ve been bombed,’ and that’s all, everything was gone. Her living, she had her handbag fortunately, but there was nothing else there. She stayed with us for quite a while, and then she went back to the West Riding where she had come from and she lived there. Because I used to go and stay with her and one of her sisters, in the Easter holidays and the summer holidays, to get away from the bombing. My parents took me and I used to stay there and I fortunately had a cousin about my age who would help things along rather than just being on my own and not knowing anybody. So, I used to go there a lot [laughs], we used to err, it was a little village called Royston in the West Riding, Wakefield, Sheffield area, and they had two cinemas, one changed three times a week and one changed twice a week [laughs]. Betty and I used to go to the cinema every night [laughs], err because it was safe and it was safe out in the West Riding as well. My mother used to send food parcels sometimes, and one time she sent kippers, well, you can imagine the smell. They wouldn’t deliver them. We had to go to the post office for them and sort of say ‘we don’t know what these are,’ [laughs], they were kippers. You know, it was just the sort of thing you did. You could get hold of anything that was scarce, she would send them to us. I quite enjoyed those holidays. We used to go cycling around the West Riding, with no thought of safety. We used to, if we were getting thirsty, we would go into the pit canteens, all these burly miners there and we would get a drink of something [laughs]. They invariably gave it to us, they didn’t charge us for it. I just think of the difference today when they haven’t got that freedom any more. That we could go cycling around the West Riding, without any worries and without having to think, were we all right and the people looking after us didn’t have to worry either, and I think the youngsters miss that freedom that we had, but [pause], I don’t know, anyway [laughs]. I don’t know what else you want to know, that I can tell you.
PC: When, can you remember the dates of the blitz in Hull?
SS: No, I can’t. I know it was a springtime and it would be about forty, forty-four wouldn’t it be? Forty-three, forty-four time. I connect it with my age, but it would be either forty-three or forty-four it would be, and it was springtime, the worst of the blitz was, but we had bombing all the time, all year round, bombing sometime or other but err.
PC: What every night?
SS: During the blitz it was every night. Night after night after night yes. That’s why my mother let me stay in the air raid shelter, to get some sleep. At other times, it more or less started straight away did the bombing. You’d hear a lot of bombs, don’t know what you call them. There would be five bombs, one dropped after the other, and you’d say. ‘that’s the last one.’ They would drop them in a row, you know, if it was nearby, we’d think thank goodness, it’s missed us, but it didn’t miss many people I’m afraid. A lot of them got it. I think Eastholme got the worse because of the docks, and the manufacturing areas there. We didn’t get such a lot. But I remember my sister cycling to work in the Stoke Ferry area and a bomb going off and she bumped her knee. She fell off her bike and she bumped her knee and I’m afraid she was in plaster for a year after that, something happened to her knee, and they blamed that on the bomb going off and she fell off.
PC: So, it was day time and night time?
SS: Oh, they did come in the day time, yes, yes, day time bombing, but not so much, but err, I’m afraid that sometimes we used to sit and watch the bombs going over, going somewhere else and missing us. But, when they came back from, sort of the Midland areas where there was manufacturing, they would drop their bombs here to get rid of them. They didn’t wait until they got over the North Sea, where it wouldn’t of hurt anybody they dropped them over somebody or other and um, so that was the blitz. It wasn’t a very good time, but, as I say I had a bolt hole on the way home, just where, well it was the women’s hospital on Cottingham Road, half way between Hall Road and the school, and there was a bungalow there that I had to go to if the bombing started during the day when I was coming home or going to school and funnily enough it got bombed, so it wouldn’t have been much good would it? But, I remember going there and, there was a house on Priory Road that in term time when I was at Cottingham School, cos’ they hadn’t gotten any shelters, and if the sirens went, you, you ran home and so I had a house on Priory Road, people my mother knew where to. And they would have to go sometimes, cos’ the sirens would go and you wanted to shelter, and it was a good walk from Cottingham School, to, to Hovan [?] Road, which I did four times a day. But, um, anyway, I got through it. I came through err, it must of formed our natures, our characters I think, a lot, going through all that sort of thing. It wasn’t easy, but you were British and you, and as Malcolm used to say, ‘press on regardless.’ When he was so ill at the end it was just a case of ‘press on regardless.’ It’s there and that’s the sort of thing that the war brings out in you, you’re stoical. And, um, I don’t think there’s much else I’ve got to say.
PC: Did you, as a young person did you, can you remember how you felt, what you thought about the future? It must have seemed relentless.
SS: Um, no, you did wonder what was going to happen after the war, but I think you more or less took things day by day, because during the war you didn’t know whether you would be here the next day, so you just made the most of the day you’d got and didn’t think too far, I mean, I know what I wanted to do and err, and fortunately I managed to do it, but um, you didn’t think too far ahead, because it was not, there was nothing to be sure of. Even as a teenager, you, you felt that even though, you know [pause] I enjoyed my teens, but nothing was permanent. You know, boyfriends were temporary, you met them and then they would be gone into the forces, or they were in the forces and would move on. Nothing was, err you didn’t sort of think this is going to go on for years because nothing did, [laughs], it was temporary. But we got through it.
PC: Mm, mm. And what about the practical things of life, you know, food and —
SS: Well it was —
PC: How did all that work?
SS: Well, it was rationed, of course, you, you didn’t have a lot, and I look back now as a housewife and I wonder how my mother managed but she did manage. My father was a butcher and people used to say ‘oh, well, you won’t be short of meat,’ but believe you me [laughs] Saturday night came and my mother didn’t know what she was getting, she’d just get what was left. So, it wasn’t a case of ‘you’re a butcher, you’ll have steak and chops time you want them’, because we just didn’t, we got what was left of the rationing and food was scarce of course and sweets were unknown more or less, so it was very little. And, of course, clothes were rationed, so if shoes, well yes, so if shoes came in a shop the word went around and you all shot off and got your shoes [laughs], or whatever was coming in because it was all scarce. There wasn’t the temptation of sweets that they have now. You just couldn’t get it and that’s all there was to it. You just accepted it. It was there, there was no use binding [?] about it, we just blamed Hitler and said it was all Hitler’s fault, so we didn’t err —
PC: So, when shops were bombed, I mean, how, was there, because the food, was there some organisation that meant that food could come in from elsewhere, or, how, how did it work?
SS: I don’t know about food, because I was too young to think about that I suppose, and I don’t think the shops my mother used were bombed, except for me nanas. She was, it was just a little corner shop that she had, but um —
PC: Was that your mother’s mum?
SS: It was my mother’s stepmother actually, and as I said she went back to the West Riding, but she had lost her livelihood which was hard because there wasn’t a lot of pensions in those days no.
PC: So, what did you do when you had time off? What sort of things did you do while you were in Hull?
SS: Went to the cinema, and as I got older of course, we went to dances, you went dancing a lot, yes, the Beverley Road Baths, and um, in Cottingham, there was the hall in Cottingham, what do you call it? It isn’t there anymore. Do you remember Christina? [talking to someone else in the room} No? Err, and we, I think we used to walk, I think we used to walk home, with no worry, and err, you would drop a friend off and you would probably end up on your own walking the last bit of the way home, because there weren’t any buses, so you walked. And food was rationed so we were all nice and slim and healthy. I think we were healthy during the war because the rations were a healthy ration. There was enough to get all your nutrition, and err, father of course, grew quite a few vegetables in the garden as well, to feed us. No, any more prompts?
PC: Did you, did you go into the city at all, did you see —
SS: Yes, yes, we —
PC: Do you have memories of what it was like in the city?
SS: Yes, yes. There was one street, I can’t remember what they call it but it was where my mother used to go for cakes as a treat, to Fowlers’ the shop, and it was completely flattened and lost. There was no more of that street anymore and they never re-built it. And, of course, a lot of the shops were bombed as well, big holes in the city. And, where the car park is, down, where the library is in Hull, it was a museum and of course it was bombed as well, so we lost that museum. It was an interesting museum, I remember it. But it was gone.
PC: Did it stay open in the war? Did they move things?
SS: I think they moved anything that was particularly um, valuable or unusual, but otherwise, no, it just got flattened, and that was the end of that one. And they never re-built it as there’s a car park there now and, across the road from that car park, just in front of the new theatre, there was just a façade of some building because it was bombed behind it and there’s still what was a cinema down Beverley Road, isn’t there? That again is just a façade, the rest was bombed. Yes, we did go into Hull, err, but not very much, because I think we were a bit too young to go into town on our own. In those days, they thought you were anyway at thirteen, fourteen but we went to the outlying cinemas the ones that were nearer home, and I think they’ve gone now. I should think they have.
PC: Do you have any memory of what the city looked like before —
SS: Vaguely —
PC: Are there any memories that you would like to share about that [indistinct] —
SS: I can’t remember that much, because at that age, in childhood and that age, you don’t particularly take it in. I was, I can err, remember places being there, the Regal Cinema which is now gone that was opposite the station, the Regal was there and there was a theatre down across the road from there. But they would have probably gone anyway. They were bombed. And of course, if they were bombed during the day there was loss of life I suppose. It wasn’t, it was a good time in some ways because people got together more, they worked together more, they had a mutual enemy and so instead of going at each other they went at Hitler and Lord Haw Haw [laughs]. We used to listen to Lord Haw Haw and my mother used to get so angry.
PC: So, everyone had a radio?
SS: Oh yes, we had a radio, everyone had a radio, I think in those days and listened to the news. I can’t remember listening to anything else, never listened to the children’s programmes, I was too busy reading, avid reader. So, we did go to the cinema, when I was in the West Riding more than anything else, because I certainly wouldn’t have gone into Hull to the cinema at that age, but I did go to the outlying ones. So, you, you made your own amusement I think, a bit more. Played with friends, yes, they would run home if the sirens went, [laughs] wasn’t much fun in that way, but we did have a good time. You know, it was err, I suppose I was lucky having parents that were quite stoical as well and, as I say my sister used to have hysterics at times, but it didn’t last long because my mother used to tell her ‘control yourself’ [laughs]. Well she was older than me so perhaps she realised the dangers more than I did.
PC: So, playing with your friends, where did you play?
SS: In the street. Because there wasn’t any traffic. Err, even before the war we played in the street but during the war petrol was rationed so cars were off the road and we used to play in the street, skipping, quite a few of us yes. I’m afraid I was naughty and used to climb the lamp posts and swing from one of the [indistinct] laughs. And we used to open the little doors at the front, where the men used to read the machines and we used to read them as well. No, it was hopscotch. Skipping, ball and top, ball and —
PC: Did you all play together, boys and girls?
SS: Yes, yes, yes, we did yes. The boys would be nuisance sometimes and we were a nuisance to them sometimes but, yes, you were all neighbours and err, and parents knew where you were and I had one friend whose mother used to blow a whistle when she wanted her to come home. The whistle would go and ‘Lynne you have to go home now’ [laugh}s. Otherwise, we didn’t have watches, somehow, we knew the time to be going home.
PC: So, did you all instinctively meet at a certain time in the day? And then —
SS: Yes, you would just meet in the street you’d see out and —
PC: You’d get up and have breakfast —
SS: Yes, yes, somebody would come and knock on the door probably. In those days, we had ten foots [?} the back of the houses, so somebody would come and knock at the back door for us and we would go out, err, it was a good time in that way, and, as I got a bit older, and when I started having boyfriends it was quite a good time as well. Because, as I said, nothing was permanent so you could just enjoy yourselves, err and not worry about things as the young people do now. I think they worry more than we used to do. But, no the bombing wasn’t nice.
PC: So, if the siren went off you would all —
SS: Go to —
PC: Scatter to your own homes?
SS: To your own place yes. To the air raid shelter yes.
PC: And they were in the garden?
SS: Yes, we’ve still got one.
PC: Oh really?
SS: Yes, yes. A six berth it was. We didn’t come here until after the war of course, but it’s six berth with a light over each bunk wasn’t there. My daughters used to play a lot, but we’ve still got it. It’s still out there. It would take a bit of knocking down I think. They used to knock them down after the war and um, the one we had at my home was knocked down and run over, but we just left that at a storage place. Very useful, but um, it’s still there.
PC: So, where you lived, were there bomb sites close to where you lived? Where you went —
SS: Not far away, no not too far away. The street in which I lived wasn’t bombed fortunately, but there were some, I would say four or five hundred yards away there would be something that was bombed. But we fortunately weren’t, but you could hear them going off not too far away and the earth would shake.
PC: And was there a smell or was it —
SS: Yes, there was a smell, and when I went to Eden Camp and sat in the air raid shelter there I said, ‘Oh I can smell the war.’
There would be, I say after the blitz it would hanging in the air, the bombs that had gone off, the explosions, would, yes there was a smell.
PC: Sort of like cordite?
SS: Yes, I couldn’t think of the word, yes there was a smell. But, um, you accepted it I suppose, and um. I’ve been known to go to the top of Skidby Windmill and watch the bombing.
PC: Really?
SS: Yes, because we were friendly with the people at Skidby Windmill. And they used to watch it, they could see the area where the bombs were dropping as well.
PC: So, how hold would have been then?
SS: Well, it would be about thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.
PC: Mm, mm.
SS: And as I say I think it would have been forty-four when the, so —
PC: How did you feel watching the bombing happening in the distance —
SS: Well err —
PC: Or did you feel detached or —
SS: Yes, I think we did, yes. It was accepted after a while. When the war first started and the bombs started dropping you were err, not really afraid, but cautious and wary of, err, you could hear them getting nearer, the bombs, err, but you just, accepted it, it was there, it was part of life that, it was no use going into hysterics over it at all. It would have done any good at all whatsoever, so you just more or less accepted it. But we the dog during the war, and our bath was one of the old-fashioned ones on little legs, and before the air raid sirens went he would be upstairs and under that bath. Yes, he knew. He would hear the, the aeroplanes coming over and we, if, if it was during the evening we would say, well you know, they are coming, sometimes they flew straight over us and went to further afield, Manchester, Liverpool, but it was amazing how that dog knew. But they do, do, dogs they can hear, yes, they know, and he did. Poor old Frisky, he used to warn us that it was —
PC: So, did you drag him out from under the bath and take him with you or —
SS: He came with us [laughs], he came with us yes, yes, he used to —
PC: So, they would come over one way and then they’d come back again?
SS: Yes, you would hear them coming back and, and as I say if they had any bombs left they would drop them over the Holderness area where the docks were. So, it was —
PC: So, it was sort of double trouble really having —
SS: Well, you knew that they had to come back, so that that you know it was, [pause] —
PC: So, were you able to sleep at all during the night raids? And did you —
SS: Oh yes, that’s why my mother left me, because I was fast asleep in the air raid shelter you see.
PC: Oh, I see, right, right.
SS: Yes, I would go to sleep in the air raid shelter, and when the all clear went, she would, I would go back upstairs, but as I say, after the third one she would leave me, because I was taking exams and she felt I needed the sleep rather than dragging me upstairs again. But it must have been hard for her because my sister was in the house on her own and I was in the shelter. Who did she go with? So, um —
PC: So, did you sometimes have more than one raid?
SS: Oh yes. Oh yes. As I say, after the third one, that’s why I stayed —
PC: Oh, my goodness.
SS: The sirens would go and they would pass over and the all clear would go and you would go back into bed and the sirens would come again, and you were sort of in and out of bed half awake. But mother always had a flask of tea, I think it would be, coffee in those days and a pack of sandwiches ready, and take them into the air raid shelter and um, and stay there as long as we needed to [laughs]. It was part of life.
PC: And then up in the morning and back off to school?
SS: Yes. And, as I say, no concessions given during the exams. You just got on with it [pause] so—
PC: And did you all, when you got to school, did you all talk about the bombings?
SS: Not a lot no —
PC: Was it all part of life?
SS: It was just part of life, and, as I say, if you saw an empty desk, you would think “Oh dear”. And wonder, cos’ not everyone had telephones in those days, and there was no, err, communication like there is now. You would just wonder, you know, how, has that been a fatality, or just an injury or what it was. You would find out eventually, that something had happened. But no fuss made at school. They wouldn’t stand up and say ‘well so and so has been, their house was bombed in the night,’ and that sort of thing. No, no. Now, of course it’s, they view it differently don’t they, but we just got on with it. And you did tend to, at least I did, tend to play in a group, so it won’t as if it was me best friend and I’ve nobody to play with, err or talk to. Because you were in a group and so you just accepted it [laughs]. It was one of those things. It seems awful but —
PC: Not at all. Did you, were you aware of conversation amongst the adults —
SS: Yes, yes, my parents used to talk about the war, and of course, avidly listen to the news and what was going on and err, follow it, with both my brothers being involved in it. My elder brother was at sea and we would follow where he was and what was happening. His ship did get bombed off the Aberdeen, off Aberdeen, off the Scottish coast. His ship was bombed, and sunk, and he got on to a raft, and he, the Germans machine gunned them on the raft. Then he sent a telegram saying, ‘I’m coming on such and such a train,’ and my mother went to meet him and he had a pair of men’s leather dancing pumps on. ‘What have you come home in those things?’ he said, ‘I haven’t got anything else. The ships been sunk.’ So, he got told off [laughs] before he’d even got home. She met him at the station poor man.
PC: So, they hadn’t had any word that the ship had been sunk?
SS: No, no, no and they wouldn’t have done either until they had officially released that news, he just wrote ‘I’ll be coming home in such and such,’ well a telegram in those days, ‘coming home on such and such a train.’
PC: And he survived the war?
SS: Pardon?
PC: And he survived the war?
SS: Both my brothers survived the war, we were very fortunate in that, yes, he did. We knew of other people who had lost family and it must have been awful, terrible. But Peter, who was in the RAF, he used to come home because he was only in Lincolnshire between raids, and ended up bringing half his crew with him I think. The pilot was Australian and he used to come every leave. He always came to our house when he was on leave and made it his second home. And I had a boyfriend who was Dutch and he did the same thing. They always brought their washing with them of course [laughs] for my mother to do. But they both made it their home and we continued hearing from them both. Well, the Australian until he died but the Dutch boy wrote until after he got married. He actually invited us to his wedding in Holland, but of course we didn’t go, but you know, there were grateful of a home. A fire to sit by, rather than, the RAF especially got criticised because they went into the pubs. Where else had they to go? And my elder brother, my elder brother went to sea and at one time he was on a Cape Town to South America run, and my other brother was in Southern Rhodesia training. They couldn’t meet because Harry was an officer and Peter was an AC plonk, they couldn’t meet in a public place in South Africa. Which was appalling because of the apartheid. So, fortunately my older brother had made friends in Durban, being across there so often, so they used to go there to meet. But I think it was awful. Brothers were not allowed to meet. That was South Africa at the time, so —
PC: What does AC plonk mean?
SS: Well, he was the lowest rank in the RAF when he was still training, and they just used to call the aircraftsmen whatever it was. Plonk. It was just a joke, you know, the lowest rank possible. And, of course Harry was way up there in the navy [laughs]. Anyway, they did meet so it wasn’t so bad, and they both survived, thank, thank goodness, yes, I don’t know—
PC: You talk about fires, and warm pubs and so forth. How did the weather affect things —
SS: The bombing?
PC: Do you have any memories. Do you have any memories of sort of —
SS: Oh, do you mean relating to the war?
PC: Yes.
SS: Well of course, if was foggy they couldn’t come over. If it was heavy fog at the time, they wouldn’t, they couldn’t come and you’d think oh, well, perhaps they won’t, but it didn’t mean that it wasn’t foggy over there. You didn’t always know. But they didn’t come, they liked a nice moonlit night. Clear skies and moon and daylight of course, you could get it in the evenings. They’d come over, and the guns would be going off as well, ack ack as we called them in those days, the anti-aircraft guns would be firing at them and you would hear them going as well. Everything was scarce but we didn’t bother and I was very, very welcoming of somebody’s cast off clothes. Somebody grew out of them and they were all passed down and they were very welcome yes.
PC: So, could you get warm in the shelters?
SS: Not really. We had all in one suits, warm ones, to put over your pyjamas, like Churchill wore, his siren suit, and there were blankets down there and there would be hot water bottles. There was no other way, was there? You know, it was, just sat it out. Waited for the all clear, hopefully.
PC: So, everything had to be very organised in the kitchen before —
SS: Yes, yes —
PC: All the time —
SS: All the time. My mother was an organised person anyway but err as you say —
PC: Grabbed the kettle, grabbed the flask, grabbed the sandwiches —
SS: The flask would be there yes. We didn’t have any sort, she wouldn’t have lit the kettle in the, in the shelter. Well, you wouldn’t have been able to, there was no electricity. You wouldn’t do it for safety sake, I don’t think. There’s not a lot of room in a shelter. You get a few people in it. She always had something ready, because sometimes you would be in for quite a long time. Fortunately, we had an outside loo, which was just outside the air raid shelter so we didn’t have to worry about that.
PC: And what about lighting?
SS: I don’t remember lighting in our air raid shelter but there was lighting in that one. You can see it if you wish to.
PC: I would love to. [pause]. Super, so, you were you able to read?
SS: Oh, yes, I was an avid reader —
PC: In the shelter, I mean —
SS: We had torches —
PC: Ahh.
SS: Because I would read under the bedclothes with a torch when I wasn’t supposed to be reading you see, so we had torches in the shelter, yes that was it. But during, I would just lie down and go to sleep. I don’t know what my mother did, poor woman but that was me, it was err just —
PC: So, most of the time it would be just you and your mum —
SS: And my sister.
PC: And your sister if she came, if she could be persuaded to come.
SS: Yes, yes [laughs]
PC: And, and that would, be it?
SS: That was it.
PC: And the dog?
SS: The dog, and father if he wasn’t on duty —
PC: On watch.
SS: On watch, Yes, he would be there. But even then, he would tend to pace around the garden and down the ten foot to see what was going on, that everything was, was safe. Because I’m afraid you did have people who took the opportunity of getting into your house.
PC: Good gracious.
SS: It happened, that sort of thing. So, he used to be more pacing around. I don’t ever remember either of my brothers coming into the shelter, and they must have been at home sometime during the blitz, but they probably would refuse to come in I don’t remember them coming in.
PC: Mm, mm.
SS: Only when you came out of the shelter, after it all, neighbours coming out of their shelter that you’d say, ‘you all alright, is everything OK’? That sort of thing, yes. The neighbourhood, everybody was very friendly, working together cooperating. My next-door neighbour, our next-door neighbour, her husband had to go in the forces and she had two little children, and my mother sort of mothered her, because she was very young. Father, used to, she once had a burst water pipe, and I remember my father going. It was in the middle of winter and pipes used to burst in those days, and helping her out. All the neighbours did, but so many of the men were away, just the women there. So, no, my father went through the first world war and came out, but my mother lost her first husband in the first world war, and she never knew what had happened to him. He was just missing presumed killed, and then eventually they said he must have died. But my elder brother, it was his father you see, he went to Holland and found his grave, and he died as a prisoner of war and my mother never knew and I felt so sorry for her. She hated Armistice Day, she was really very upset on Armistice Day. So, he did find him but it was after my mother had died unfortunately. He found his father’s grave.
PC: So, was he, was he in the trenches?
SS: Yes, yes, he was in the trenches. But how he came to be in Holland we never found out because Holland wasn’t in the first world war. We never managed to find out. It’s too late now, I’m afraid, to find out but he did go and satisfy himself as to where his father was. It was a hard time.
PC: So, your father, what did he do?
SS: He was in, In the first world war?
PC: Mm.
SS: He was in the army. But err, he went out, he was out in the Middle East and the Far East. Err, in Israel, Afghanistan, Burma and all round that side of the war. So, he, but there was quite a lot of fighting in the first world war, out in the Far East. Yes, because they came over into India and came that way, but err, he wasn’t deeply involved in it. We had quite a lot of photos, but I’ve given them to my nephew. Not having any sons, myself, he was next in line for that sort of thing so he had those, but no.
PC: So, did your parents, did you ever get a sense of how your parents felt about another war in their lifetime.
SS: Oh, my mother was very, very anti Hitler, anti -Germany, with losing her first husband, in the first. Oh yes, she was very bitter about it, and yes, and err, very, very patriotic. You know, if the national anthem came on the radio, we stood up, even like this, we stood up for the national anthem yes. She was very bitter against the Germans, yes. Which is understandable. She was left with no pension. There was no pension then. Because they didn’t know he was dead. She didn’t even get a war pension, so she had nothing. These days it wouldn’t be allowed. No, but like the rest of the British nation, she coped, and then married my father but he wasn’t —
PC: How did they meet?
SS: I don’t know. I have no idea how they met. It’s a shame. You don’t think of these things until the time has passed and there is absolutely nobody left now to know. How they met I don’t know, no idea. But err, he came from a very big family as well. They were all nice people. My Granny —
PC: Was he a Hull lad as well?
SS: Oh yes, yes. I don’t know about my mother’s first husband. She never really talked about it, people didn’t in those days, and father said very little about his part in the war in Afghanistan. But I remember him saying to us that that part of the world will always be in turmoil, there will always be fighting. He was on Khyber Pass, of course. He said there would always be fighting there always will. And it’s true, isn’t it? Their fighting now.
PC: So, what was his, as an air raid warden, did you get a sense of what he—
SS: He wasn’t actually an air raid warden, he was up on the roof of the buildings—
PC: Ahh.
SS: In case—
PC: Fire watching.
SS: Fire watching, yes. And if a fire bomb dropped they would have to put it out. Sand yes.
PC: So how did that work?
SS: Well, he would just be walking around the top of the building watching for things dropping and just had his own area, the town end of Beverley Road, for the shops there. They didn’t get bombed though, I think he had the job of putting the fire bombs out once or twice. Buckets of sand. We all had buckets of sand left in the garden so, if one dropped you could put the fire out.
PC: Dangerous work.
SS: Yes. Yes, but they did it. They just did it. I had a brother-in-law who couldn’t be in the war because of a disablement and he used to go watching, I can’t remember what they were called, along the coast for the Germans coming over so he would spend the night with other people, doing that sort of thing. So, even those who couldn’t physically take part in the war would be doing something, to, to help. But I was, I was too young to be, to have to do anything, err, because the women got called up as well to do the jobs. Err, I can’t think of anything [laughs] it will come to me afterwards.
PC: So, at the end of the war then, how old were you at the end of the war?
SS: I would have been about sixteen, seventeen. I was at technical college by then doing a pre-nursing course, and I remember us all going to the headmaster and saying, ‘can we, can we go out,’ because the sirens were going and the church bells were all ringing, and he said, ‘yes, off you go,’ so off we went into the town to join in all the celebrations [laughs]. But we went back to college next day. It didn’t stop, we [indistinct]. It was a huge relief, even at that age for me. It was a huge relief that we wouldn’t be getting bombed anymore hopefully, everything could gradually get back to normal. It didn’t change an awful lot, other than that. You were still on rations and things were still scarce, but it was just the huge relief that that was it and things would get back to normal eventually. And they did.
PC: Tell us a little bit, if you can [laughs] about your celebrations.
SS: Oh well, I was far too young to drink. I was forty-five before I ever went in a public house. My father was dead against it. No, it was just a case of, in the city, Paragon Square, just dancing around, joining everybody and having a good time, and celebrating, like you see them in London outside Buckingham Palace, just dancing around. We hadn’t got the King and Queen, but you were just going around the town and just sort of being joyful and happy and getting over it. It went on into the evening and then you got the bus home. And that was it. We didn’t go on for too long. It wasn’t getting drunk [laughs], no, no. I say, I was forty-five before I went in a pub, and I remember going in it and thinking ‘I don’t know what my father would say if he knew I was in a pub.’ He wouldn’t even have sherry in a trifle. So, no, we survived and had a good time without drinking alcohol. We had a very good time, yes. So, no it was —
PC: I guess Hull would have been, you know, being a port and there would have been lots of activity —
SS: Oh yes —
PC: In terms of lots of sailors and —
SS: Oh yes. Yes, I think my house, well my mother’s house was known as the United Nations. But I took everybody home. My mother said, ‘whoever you meet bring them home.’ So, they would come home and they were all right. I say, the Dutch boy and the Australian boy and there was another one from my brothers [pause] who used to come home, and my mother would feed them and she would say ‘they’re all right as long as they come home and see where you live and see it’s a decent place,’ and they were really all grateful for a fire place to sit around. So, err, no —
PC: That must have been very interesting growing up —
SS: It was —
PC: Exciting —
SS: It was, yes. You met all sorts of people. I remember a Frenchman who lived in Algeria, and that was interesting because my parents would talk to him about his home, and he kept in touch for a long time after the war as well. And err, the Poles and Czechs, and you know, everybody got together, there was no feeling of nastiness or anything, it was all, you know, just friends together. Yes, yes, at the dances you used to meet all sorts of nations. I remember going to the hall in Cottingham for a dance, and it was when the Americans had come and we didn’t realise that they were all coloured men, and do you know, a lot of the girls walked out when they walked in there and saw them. We didn’t, my sister-in-law and I didn’t. I mean, I don’t see why. But err, thinking of the coloureds, after the war, oh, after I was married, for a while I worked as a secretary to the doctor’s in the village and he was doctor to the university and I remember giving an injection to a coloured student, and when I went down to the chemist, which was underneath the surgery, he said ‘you haven’t had to give an injection to that n***** have you?’ I said to him ‘yes [emphasis] I’ve nursed children who are coloured children, it’s only skin. Your eyes are a different colour to mine.’ He was horrified that I’d given an injection and touched, and he was a lovely boy as well, he was ever so nice. Because the prejudice, and that was it, when all the girls walked out of Civic Hall in Cottingham.
PC: And were they Americans?
SS: Yes, they were Americans and they were billeted at the end of Northgate along there opposite the West End Road, is it there now? There’s a police station there now I think, but that was where they were billeted. We did have refugees, but they did on Priory Road, children refugees, who’d been evacuated from their own country, foreigners. So, we had those there as well. And, with being a port, as you say you got a lot of foreign sailors in but mother’s house was United Nations.
PC: [Indistinct}
SS: Well, as I say they were all, they were all nice boys, there was no nastiness about them. There was nobody who wanted to go further than they should do probably, shall we put it that way? Never thought about it myself. But a lot would look for it, for sex. But they were just grateful to get into a family home a lot of them, I think. I don’t know how my mother made the rations go. She almost always gave them bacon sandwiches, something always manged to stretch. Probably do without herself, my mother. People used to think because my father was a butcher, have I said that?
PC: Mm.
SS: That we got more —
PC: That you got more than you —
SS: No, we didn’t so —
PC: Did you, did you feel after the war that Hull got the recognition that —
SS: No, no. It’s just like Bomber Command never got it. Yes, yes, we were a North Sea port and not recognised for, because I think, I think we lost more, like Bomber Command lost more in proportion the number of people who were in, and I think Hull did. I think Hull got more bombing in proportion to London. We certainly got a lot. But err, it was mostly in East Hull, got the worst of it. But um, no, we came through. We got through it all, and I got through this interview [laughs].
PC: It’s been an excellent interview.
SS: Thank you.
PC: There was one other thing I wanted to ask you about and that is of course you were married to someone in Bomber Command.
SS: I didn’t know him when he was in Bomber Command.
PC: Right, right.
SS: I didn’t meet Malcom until after war, well after the war, so I didn’t know him then, but I’ve heard enough about it since. And if you had come four years ago, you’d have found the house full of Lancaster bombers. Everywhere weren’t they Christina? Yes. Every room but that room, but there we had a little clock with a Lancaster bomber on it as well. But everywhere was, up the walls, there were fifty-six frames with photographs in —
PC: Good grief —
SS: And, of course, most of them have gone to [indistinct] so they will be in the archives for you. Cos’ as I say, he saved everything. Even the —
PC: Was there anything that you wanted to include in your interview about his experiences that were perhaps —
SS: Well —
PC: Particularly important to you, from your perspective.
SS: Only for him, from his perspective, again being stoical, he would come back off a raid and see an empty bed and it was stripped so they knew that one had gone and they would wait for others coming back and which, have you seen the Bomber Command war memorial in London.
PC: I have.
SS: I thought it was very moving, and it was the one at the end, that happened to be the wireless operator that is standing, like this, waiting for some of the others to come back. And, you know, they say, they looked and they’d say, ‘oh so and so’s pranged it.’ And again, Malcolm was very stoical about it. You knew it was going to happen. So, you didn’t go over the top but err. I know one thing that they’d always say, when they were flying back to Lincolnshire they looked for Lincoln Cathedral but they would also look for a Windmill, which was Uncle Harry’s windmill, Malcolm’s uncle. And, it’s still standing is that windmill but —
PC: The one in Lincoln?
SS: Yes, just outside Lincoln, somewhere near Sleaford way. It would be in the archives because there’s a photo and it says, ‘Uncle Harry’s wind.’ And wren {indistinct] the pilot says the same thing ‘when we saw the windmill we were nearly home then.’ But they always say it was Lincoln Cathedral they looked for but 207 Squadron looked for Uncle Harry’s mill [laughs]. I don’t know other than that. He never talked a lot about it. He didn’t say very much. It did produce a strong comradeship amongst them. As the pilot says, ‘everyone was reliant on each other in that aircraft.’ In fact, he said, ‘even though I was the captain, I was the one that they could do without more than any of the others.’ And err, so they had a very strong bond with them and this one that’s left, rang me up the other day to see how I was doing, and you know, kept in contact with two of the wives who are widows now. They did have two reunions. Just two of them were missing, the Australian and the South African, but twice we’ve had a reunion of the crew which was lovely for them, and for me to see them as well, yes it was a very, very strong bond they made. So, it but, it was always a relief when they turned for home he said, on their way, and hope they weren’t shot at on their way home. As Malcolm said, ‘you’re in a tin can full of bombs. You’ve nothing to dull the sound there’s no heating, and if somebody hit the plane the bombs would go off and you’d had it.’ It wasn’t much fun and he couldn’t wear gloves because he was the wireless operator. So, he had silk gloves which I’ve given to my grandson, and he’d worn the fingers out, because he couldn’t wear the leather gloves that the others had on because he had to be able to use his finger. You’ll have to go see all his things in [indistinct]. When they get done again. I don’t know what stage there at, because you took it to bits, didn’t you? And then Christina’s husband who was doing most of this was very ill, and is still very ill, so this will get sorted out again. But it was interesting.
PC: So, you married in Hull?
SS: Yes, we married in Hull, at St John’s Newland, yes in Hull.
PC: And you settled in Hull?
SS: We settled off Bricknall Avenue which strictly was in Cottingham, yes and then we move here, and we’ve been here since 1955.
PC: And you had two daughters?
SS: Yes, two daughters. The other one’s away at the moment on holiday so no, um, I’ve a very good family, all along the line. I don’t know what I would do without you {talking to someone else in the room}. I really don’t. I don’t know how people manage on their own when they are widowed. It must be very hard work. Because when anybody, when my mother and father died I had two brothers to see to it all and when my mother-in-law died Malcolm saw to it all so I’ve really no experience of coping with it all but we managed, we managed. He’d kept everything, every bit of paper. He had two, what do you call them? What do you call those—
Somebody else in the room: Filing cabinets.
Filing cabinets, one with four drawers and one with three drawers they were full. His bedroom was full of boxes full of papers, the spare room was full of boxes and boxes of papers. I had to go through every one. I sat on that chair with a rubbish bag at the side and a saving at the other and every time I threw something away I would say, ‘I’m sorry Malcolm but it really has to go’ [laughs}. And he had always been really meticulous about taking addresses off every letter, if he threw one away, and so although I knew it wasn’t necessary I was tearing the addresses off every one.
PC: What did you do in civi street?
SS: Err, well I was nursing at first and then I went as secretary to two doctors in the village here.
PC: And what did your husband do?
SS: He was an accountant. He ended up, do you remember King and Co in the Market Place —
PC: No, sorry?
SS: You don’t?
PC: No.
SS: Well, he ended up as managing director there and then they got taken over and he went to the Blind Institute as manager there, but he was an accountant by training, so everything had to be done to a penny. But he left everything all right in the end, didn’t he, Malcolm. So, we coped, as usual. Poor man, nobody should have suffered like he did in the last year of his life. It was terrible wasn’t it Christina? He has cancer of the face. I couldn’t even recognise him, which Dove House [?] said, it was a bereavement in itself. I would sit there, he was here and I would say ‘it’s not Malcolm, even his hands didn’t look the same.’ I don’t whether I’ve got some photographs of him. [rustling]. No, I did have some photographs. You took some photographs of him, didn’t you? They were awful. There one on the other side, of him.
PC: You can see he was a handsome man.
SS: He was in his time yes. But um, he really went through it at the end, but err, there’s when we went to Buckingham Palace.
PC: That’s lovely, let’s have a little look at those.
SS: I think they’re all family, I don’t think there any of Malcolm here these are all family.
PC: Shall we stop the recording?
SS: Yes please.
PC: is there anything else, before we look at these wonderful photos, is there anything else, that you can think of that you would like to add? Anything at all.
SS: I can’t really, no. As I say not from during the war, oh that’s Bomber Command. Not really.
PC: In that case, I would just like to say a huge thank you to you that fascinating story and thank you very much for sharing it with us.
SS: There’s a photo here, it’s not Malcolm isn’t on it. This would have been during the war, Christmas. And that’s Malcolm’s pilot, no, my brother’s pilot from Australia.
PC: I’m going to end the recording now.
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AStavesS160523
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Interview with Sheena Staves
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:05:42 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Pam Locker
Date
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2016-04-23
Description
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During the war Sheena lived in Cottingham, a village close to Hull. She lived with her mother and father (who was a fire watcher). He fought in the Far East during the first world war. She had two elder brothers, one in the Navy and one in the Royal Air Force. She also had an older sister. Sheena was thirteen when war broke out and she continued to attend school. Many of her peer group were evacuated to Bridlington, but Sheena stayed at home. She describes what it was like being a teenager during the war and how this affected her daily life plus activities. This included school exams, relationships with family, friends, and boyfriends. Sheena talks about the social impact of the bombing including rationing of food and clothing. Sheena’s husband was a pilot in Bomber Command, she is a widow, has two daughters and trained as a nurse.
Coverage
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Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Hull
England--Yorkshire
Contributor
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Jan Hargrave
Air Raid Precautions
animal
bombing
childhood in wartime
civil defence
evacuation
firefighting
home front
incendiary device
memorial
shelter
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1419/25209/AWeltonB150604.1.mp3
595bcc016e786922ddc517ce96f6d4fc
Dublin Core
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Title
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Welton, Betty
B Welton
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-04
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Welton, B
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Betty Welton.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
BW: My name’s Betty Welton and I was born in 1924 and I had a good childhood and I joined the Land Army when I was seventeen and a half. Dad wouldn’t let me join the Forces because he said they’d got a bad name. So I said, ‘Well, what about the Land Army?’ And that seemed alright so I joined up. And I went up, I got my papers and everything and went up to Westgate Station at Wakefield where we lived, got on the train and went right down to Bletchley and then we got transferred to Amersham, in billets there. And it was hard. And we were all, we had bicycles where we had to go to work. But apart from that the airmen used to come from the camp not far away to dances at our hostel and then we used to go there to their dances which was good.
PE: Do you want me to ask you some questions? Is that going to be easier for you?
BW: You ask me questions.
PE: Yeah. Okay. Fine. [Pause] What school did you go to?
BW: I went to Lawefield Lane School at Wakefield. First of all I went to the Church School, sorry and then I went to Lawefield Lane School and left when I was fourteen and got a job straightaway. But sadly, mother died just after I had started work and she was only fifty eight. But I kept working for about two years at a dress, in a dress shop. But dad couldn’t manage so I had to leave the job and stay at home and look after dad. And that’s how I learned to cook and everything and house work. And then eventually after years went by he got married again. So, I wasn’t very happy and I said, ‘Well, I’m joining the Forces.’ But then he said, ‘You’re not going in the Forces. They’ve got a bad name.’ So, I joined the Land Army and it was the best time of my life.
PE: Why did you particularly want to join the Forces?
BW: To get away. To get away from cleaning and, being a young girl again.
PE: What attracted you to the RAF?
BW: I don’t know really. It was just I used to love aeroplanes. There weren’t so many then but I used to love aeroplanes and I thought I’d love to join the Air Force but it wasn’t to be. But it did run in the family later on because my son joined the Air Force when he was old enough and so did my daughter. So that was lovely for me.
PE: It’s alright. Just a sec. I’m just going to shut this window. We’re getting a bit of traffic noise through. That’s made a big difference. It’s alright. Don’t worry. You’re doing fine. When you went to Amersham, in the billets there —
BW: Yeah.
PE: What sort of work did you do on the land?
BW: I was shepherdess, and a milkmaid but more a shepherdess. And I loved that. That was really lovely being with the lambs when they were born.
PE: Can you sort of describe what you did?
BW: Well, I used to have to be there when they were lambing and help the lambs out. And I think it was there that I was doing the milking and a cow kicked me and it sent me agin the boards and I sprained my wrist so I had to go home then on leave. I was on leave about three weeks and then I, when I was all fit to go back I joined up again and I was sent to Grantham. Little, Little Ponton, in private billets which was nice. Nice family. But it was hard work getting up early and fetching water from the pump down in the stackyard and such things. Fetching the cows up. Never thought I’d do things like that but yes, it went alright. And then they used to kill a pig which was horrible. I used to have to help with that with the lady. And I remember the only cooker she had was a metal cooker about a yard wide and long and it was paraffin heaters underneath it. Two paraffin heaters. But she used to cook some lovely meals, especially pastry. I remember the big pies we used to get. And, and then my dad, as I said he got married. Met somebody at Ropsley and got married again. But I didn’t used to get home much to Wakefield I’m afraid. There was nothing there for me.
PE: When you, sorry I’ll start that again, when you sprained your wrist and you went home for three weeks were you sort of happy then?
BW: Not really. No. I was eager to get back. Really eager to get back and I soon got in to it again. Got a few blisters like but —
PE: So originally you went to Amersham.
BW: Yes.
PE: Which is in Buckinghamshire.
BW: Yeah.
PE: And then you sprained your wrist and you went back to —
BW: Yeah.
PE: Wakefield.
BW: Yeah.
PE: Or near Wakefield.
BW: Yeah.
PE: And then you were reallocated to, to near Grantham. Is that correct?
BW: Yes. Yeah.
PE: Yeah.
BW: Yeah
PE: Yeah. Did you see a big difference in the way that you looked after animals in Amersham compared to Grantham?
BW: Well, I liked the people more in, at Little Ponton and around about, you know and the animals were taken care of. We had to care for them more there. Myself, I had to, you know washing them down before they were milked. We had to do everything and then, you know with the milk as well. And I used to help them make butter. I’m trying to think. I had something else on my mind and I can’t think now.
PE: Well, normally what happens when I interview people they usually remember something that isn’t very nice. So I don’t know whether you saw any of the —
BW: Oh yes.
PE: Saw any of the action.
BW: I have.
PE: Over Amersham, you know.
BW: No. This is over at Little Ponton, not Little Ponton, at Grantham. At Ingoldsby. The worst thing was being a town girl I wasn’t used to country ways and the toilet. Shall I put this?
PE: Yeah. Carry on.
BW: The toilet was right down in the stack yard and you had to go through geese and all sorts to get there. It was shocking. And when you got in the toilet it was buckets underneath and there was three holes in the wood. The mind boggles but I never had any company [laughs]
PE: At the time that you were in Amersham it —
BW: Oh right.
PE: It, it it’s possible that as you were near the south coast you might have saw some of the aeroplanes going in and going out. Did you remember anything like that?
BW: Not such a lot there. No. It was more at Little Ponton where they got to know all the aeroplanes. The Lancasters. They used to be going over our house.
PE: Yeah. So, at that time were you living at Stainton le Vale?
BW: I was at, I was at little, at Binbrook. No.
PE: Right.
BW: I’m getting mixed up.
PE: You were at Grantham.
BW: I was at Grantham.
PE: Grantham.
BW: Yes.
PE: And you described —
BW: At Branston.
PE: At Branston.
BW: At Branston. That’s right.
PE: And —
BW: Yes.
PE: You were very close to the end of the runway at Binbrook.
BW: Oh, that was Stainton le Vale.
PE: Right.
BW: That was at Stainton le Vale where we lived, yes.
PE: Yeah.
BW: Yeah.
PE: I’m just trying to —
BW: Oh sorry. Yes.
PE: I’m just trying to follow the sequence of events.
BW: Yeah.
PE: So, we have you at Amersham.
BW: Right. Yes.
PE: And then you go to Grantham.
BW: Yes.
PE: And then at some point you’re watching Lancasters.
BW: Yes.
PE: Going over the, or coming in and out of Binbrook.
BW: Yes.
PE: So, can you just sort of describe that?
BW: Well, when we, when I was at Binbrook in private lodgings we used to hear the Binbrook, hear the Lancasters going out bombing. And we used to count them. There was another Land Girl and we slept in the same bed which wouldn’t be allowed now would it? [laughs] And we used to hear the Lancasters going over and count them. It isn’t often we heard them coming back. I suppose we’d be asleep. But one night we were in bed and the German planes came over and it was a, it was a row of cottages at Branston at, in the top of the village and he went right down the row of houses machine gunning and the bullets came through our bedroom ceiling and they were just showing through. I think there was quite a few because they, and of course the girl I was with we wanted to keep some of the bullets for souvenirs but the police wouldn’t let us. We had to, they had to take them or whoever. But that was quite frightening.
PE: Did you ever see any crash landings?
BW: No.
PE: At Binbrook.
BW: No. I didn’t. No.
PE: Okay. So how long were you at Binbrook then?
BW: My first daughter was born there. We were there about three years, I think.
PE: Right.
BW: My first husband was one for moving about. It came to April the 6th, moving day on the farms and from there we moved to Darlton, near Newark and my youngest son was born there. From there we moved to [pause] oh where did we go then? My family have all been born in different villages.
PE: When did you meet your husband?
BW: I met my husband in the Land Army.
PE: Can you, can —
BW: He worked on the farm.
PE: Can you describe that? How you met?
BW: Yes. Well, they used to come, my husband used to come with two or three more to work on our farm in busy seasons and of course the Land Girls used to be talking to them and took us out a time or two when we got to know them to the dances and it went from there and we decided to get married.
PE: What year was that?
BW: Would it be ’44 or [pause] no. No. It wasn’t. Forty, yeah ’44 and my first daughter was born in ’46.
PE: And where was that?
BW: At Stainton le Vale. That’s right. Got that right.
PE: Good. So, you were at Grantham.
BW: Yes.
PE: And was and you met your husband there.
BW: Yeah.
PE: Yeah. And then you moved to Stainton le Vale.
BW: Yes.
PE: Which is where that put you at sort of at the end of the —
BW: Yes, that’s —
PE: Effectively at the end of the runway.
BW: Yes. That’s right. Yeah.
PE: For Binbrook. And that’s where you saw all the Lancasters —
BW: Yes.
PE: Coming in and out.
BW: Yes.
PE: Yeah. Yeah.
BW: And we used to walk up through Binbrook to the village and we could see the planes all stood there you know but you used to be able to walk through. Just like that. You wouldn’t now.
PE: When you were walking through did you ever speak to any of the pilots?
BW: No.
PE: Or the crews?
BW: No.
PE: No.
BW: I’d got a pram with me then. I was in a hurry to get there and back. It was a long way. I hadn’t time to chat. No. I never saw anybody. Not [pause] but I know at Binbrook, not that we went, the airmen used to go to one of the pubs there. I forget what they called it. Very popular it was for the airmen. They more or less took it over. But no, we never went there. Couldn’t afford it.
PE: So, what did you do after the war?
BW: Where did we live then? Stainton le Vale. Then we went to near Newark as I said. Worked on the farm there. And then we went to, we came to Caistor. Sorry, Swallow. We came to Swallow then and my husband worked on the land. And of course, I’d got a family then so [pause] but unfortunately, he died when he was fifty eight. He got a disease. They were spraying on the land and they never used to wear masks then. He worked for a Mr Bingham and he got this spray on him. And it started here and he went to hospital and he never came out. It spread over him. He died at fifty eight and I had four children.
PE: I’m sorry to hear that.
BW: That was sad.
PE: Yes. It is.
BW: I’m still here and they’re all lovely children.
PE: And they look —
BW: They grew up and got their own children.
PE: And they look after you —
BW: Yes. They do.
PE: Good.
BW: They all live away but they do come and see me.
PE: Is it fair to say that because you joined the Land Army then working on the land became your life after the end of the Second World War?
BW: That it — ?
PE: I’ll say that again. When you joined the Land Army that was something you were very interested in.
BW: Yes. Yeah.
PE: Did that sort of encourage and inspire you to carry on working on the land?
BW: Oh, it did. It made my life joining the Land Army. It brought me out. I was very shy. Well, I still am a bit shy but, it never leaves you but I was awfully shy ‘til then and it just made a woman of me I suppose. A lady. And I enjoyed it so much.
PE: And that inspired you to carry on working on the land.
BW: Yes. Yes, it did.
PE: So, in effect —
BW: Yes.
PE: You were in farming weren’t you?
BW: Yes.
PE: Yes.
BW: Yeah.
PE: In agriculture.
BW: Yeah.
PE: Yeah. During your time, you know as somebody who was in the Land Army can you remember anything that was particularly amusing?
BW: Well, more or less only that at Branston. When the bombers went over. And, well we thought it was awful at the time but then we thought it was funny after but the lady we lodged with she was very very strict and we had to be in a certain time and if we were late the door used to be locked.
PE: So, when you were at Branston you were working on the land.
BW: Yeah.
PE: As a Land Girl.
BW: Yeah.
PE: But you were actually living somewhere else in these digs. Is that right?
BW: Yes. In private billets they was. Yeah.
PE: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, they were all private billets then.
BW: Well, that house we were in was that the Land Army, you know. She would get paid well for having us there. And we used to have to cycle to work.
PE: How far did you have to cycle?
BW: A mile and a half or two mile. Yes. It was hard work.
PE: Did you enjoy it?
BW: I did. Yeah. We got over it. It was hard work but yes we enjoyed it.
PE: So, do you think you made a valuable contribution to the war effort?
BW: I’m sure I did. I’m sure I did. Yes. Because the people that we were billeted with at the private billets they’d never seen town people before you know. They took a bit of getting used to my ways. And if it thundered the lady when I was at Ponton, in private billets rather she, the children that she had used to have to go under the table and pull the tablecloth down. And I used to sit there. She was annoyed with me because I wouldn’t do it but that was funny.
PE: Is there anything else you can particularly remember about your time in the Land Army?
BW: Well, when I was shepherdess I, as I say I used to have to take the feed out in a little pony and trap. And that was lovely going on the main road with the bags of feed and then you know putting it in the troughs for them. And that was a lovely time. I can’t remember anything much else.
PE: Did you ever think while you were in the Land Army did you ever think about what was happening, you know in London and some of the other big cities?
BW: Oh, I did. I did.
PE: When they were being bombed.
BW: Yes. I did. But it was, there wasn’t a lot of news then was there? You know. Radio. I think she had a radio but we didn’t get a chance to listen to it so we didn’t know. Only when we saw the bombers going over and things like that. We weren’t well informed. But we did wonder what was going on.
PE: Did you ever manage to get to a cinema?
BW: Yes. We did now and again in Lincoln but we had to cycle in. But yeah, there was the news on then. Oh, that would be it. That’s where we got the news. Yeah. Pathe Gazette. Yes. So, it was quite alarming that was. To think that we were safe like we were and what was going on there. It was hell wasn’t it?
PE: Did you ever worry about your family back in Wakefield?
BW: Not really. But when, when I was at home it was, before mother died and we had, did I tell you, we had to down in the cellar.
PE: Carry on.
BW: And we used to have to go down some stone steps where there was a big gantry where you kept food and then the next door you went through was the coal place where the man used to put the coal through a thing on the street. Drop the bag of coal through and we used to have to sit in this cellar. Well, the [pause] the siren went to say it was all clear and there was a bomb dropped at the end of our road where I lived. In the allotments.
PE: And that was in Wakefield.
BW: That was in Wakefield. Yeah. Did I say I joined the ARP?
PE: No, you didn’t.
BW: Oh. I did. Yeah.
PE: Well. I’ll ask the question then. Did you join the ARP?
BW: I did. Yes. That’s a thing I did want to do and used to go, wear a gas mask when we were at school. Little cardboard boxes. And of course, we had to take them up there to the, in to Wakefield and we used to be on duty. Night duty. Sleep in a little bed with a stone water bottle and if you were lucky you were agin, agin the stove. A big black stove. Freezing cold. But yeah, we’d some good friends there and I got to know a lot of people.
PE: So, you were doing firewatch duty.
BW: Yes. Yeah. I was trained for St John’s medical things. I got my certificate and everything but I never had to use it, thank goodness.
PE: So, when you were an ARP warden presumably you did that as well as your ordinary job.
BW: Yes. I did. Yes. Yes.
PE: So, did that mean working at night a lot?
BW: Not in my job. We finished at seven. We finished at 7 o’clock on a weekday in the shop and then sometimes I used to go straight to the ARP instead of going home. Take my things with me and go straight up there.
PE: Yeah. So, you were working. So, you were working during the day.
BW: Yes.
PE: And then you were doing your ARP duties.
BW: Yes.
PE: During the night.
BW: Yes. I did.
PE: Is that right?
BW: Yeah.
PE: You didn’t get a lot of sleep then.
BW: No, didn’t. Didn’t. But it wasn’t every night I was on duty. Just so many nights. Maybe two nights a week, and you could sleep if you could get to sleep but, yeah I’d forgotten about that.
PE: Yeah. So, did you see much bombing in Wakefield?
BW: Yes. Yes, we did and we could hear them going off. Terrible. Wakefield was hit quite bad but not, as I say there was one at the end of the garden. It was an incendiary bomb so [pause] but I didn’t know much about, I can’t remember much about anything else with the bombs but I knew they were going off.
PE: Is, is that what inspired you to want to join the RAF?
BW: It is. Yeah. Yeah. I, I just liked the thoughts of the RAF. But then dad wouldn’t let me so I never got in there.
PE: Did your father do anything during the Second World War? I mean was he —
BW: He was a blacksmith engineer. He was a very busy man. He, at Sydney Raines at Wakefield. He went there from school being an orphan as I told you and they trained him and he was there while he retired and I remember he, he came home and he said he’d been offered would it be a pension? Not a pension. Money. He could either have it, some every month or a lump sum and he had a lump sum and I think it was eighty seven pound. It was a fortune then. Something of that, that figure. Yeah.
PE: Was your father involved in the First World War?
BW: No. No. He wasn’t. No. No. He wasn’t, he wasn’t old enough for that. But they had a brother that was in the army, Uncle Herbert and he went to France. He was in the bombing. He went to Germany. Was it Germany? And he got shot. That’s right. And he came back to France to the hospital there where they used to go, didn’t they? I think it was France. No. It wasn’t. It was Jersey. Sorry. They sent him to Jersey to the hospital and he was there a long time. He was quite ill. But then he recovered and the nurse that had been looking after him they got engaged and got married and he decided to stay in Jersey. They lived in there. So, and his family, my cousin Eric, he is the, a Chelsea Pensioner now. Virtually the same age as me. So we keep in touch quite a lot.
PE: Do you see him very often?
BW: No. I would love to go down to London but I just can’t make it. My daughter and granddaughter went but I wasn’t fit enough to go. Not, not there and back in one day. But I’m going to do. They’re going to take me and we shall stay overnight at Chelsea, in the barracks so Eric said. Which would be lovely.
PE: Well, that’s lovely. Thanks very much for taking the time to talk to me.
BW: Oh [laughs]
PE: As I say. Is there anything else you can remember or —
BW: Yeah [pause] I can’t remember such a lot except when we [pause] where was it? At Swallow I used to drive a little Fergie tractor. I was so proud of that tractor. Have I told you that? And my youngest son David, he was only, it was when I was left on my own and I used to take David with me and there was a seat at the back of the tractor and I used to pad it up and tie him with a big scarf around me and he used to go to work with me on the tractor. Work with the, in the fields. Tractor and trailer and the lot.
PE: How old was he then?
BW: It was before he started school. He’d be four. Three and a half. Four. But I had to go to work because I needed money. A widow’s pension wasn’t much then and a family. And then I didn’t report it that I was working and somebody reported me. So I gave up then. Some kind person. I didn’t make, didn’t get much money.
PE: No.
BW: Not, you know, on the farm.
PE: No.
BW: But that was a horrible thing.
PE: Yeah.
BW: But I never looked back after. Yeah.
PE: Good. Well thanks very much, Betty. That was —
BW: Oh, you’re welcome.
PE: That was wonderful. Thank you.
BW: I hope I’ve done it right.
PE: That’s alright. As I say it, I mean sometimes people will just tell their story from start to finish.
BW: Yeah.
PE: And sometimes it means that —
BW: Yeah.
PE: You know, whoever I interview we have a conversation like we’ve done.
BW: Yes. Yeah.
PE: But it doesn’t matter. We’ve, we’ve got —
BW: Yeah.
PE: Some really nice stories and some information from you.
BW: Oh good.
PE: So, that will be really helpful.
BW: Oh good.
PE: I’m sure everybody will be pleased with that so thank you very much.
BW: Thank you anyway for taking the time as well to do that. It’s quite an honour.
PE: It’s a pleasure. Alright then, Betty.
BW: And as I said I’m going to a tea dance this afternoon. I’ve never been to one before.
PE: I’m sure —
BW: It’s only in Caistor.
PE: I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.
BW: My friend said, ‘I’ve, I’ve got two tickets and we’re going to a tea dance.’ My goodness. I said, ‘I can’t dance now. We used to.’ And she said, ‘Well, we can shuffle our feet.’
PE: Did you do a lot of dancing in the war?
BW: Pardon?
PE: Did you do a lot of dancing in the war?
BW: Yes, I did. When we went to Spitalgate and they used to come to us at Branston. I used to love dancing.
PE: Yeah.
BW: But as I said dad would never let me dance. Never go to a dance at home but I made up for it after [laughs] And I behaved myself [laughs]
PE: Well, that’s very good. It’s interesting really that of all the people that I’ve spoken to whatever happened during the war, whatever tragedies occurred they still carried on with life.
BW: Yeah.
PE: As it was.
BW: Yes. Yeah.
PE: And from your point of view I remember interviewing people who were in London and whatever bombing took place they always made sure they went to the dance.
BW: Yes.
PE: On a Saturday night.
BW: Yes. That’s right.
PE: And they went to the pictures on say a Wednesday night.
BW: All times of the year. Yeah.
PE: The Blitz spirit truly survived.
BW: Yeah.
PE: And the good old British public.
BW: That’s right.
PE: Would not be beaten.
BW: No.
PE: And they had a great, great strength and great bravery —
BW: Yes.
PE: I think, to, to continue with it, you know so —
BW: And I remember at, when I was at Grantham I’d never had much money, you know. I didn’t get a lot in the Land Army but I used to save it up and when I went in to Lincoln I bought these new shoes and they were red and, bright red and bright green and they were like clogs. That was the fashion then. You won’t remember them, will you? And I went home in them. My dad nearly had a fit. I think he nearly burned them.
PE: What year was that then roughly?
BW: Oh, what year would it be?
PE: It was during the war, was it?
BW: Yeah.
PE: That was very brave [laughs]
BW: [laughs] Yes, it was. That was funny really. It was awful at the time but [pause] Oh, and another thing I’ve remembered. This girl I was with in lodgings she had a blonde, they used to have a, like a, I forget what you called it like a fringe but turned under. So I got mine done. And hers was done blonde so what did I do? We got some bleach and she did mine for me. Went home on leave once. My dad nearly threw a fit. Anyhow, he says, ‘What have you done?’ I said, ‘I haven’t done anything.’ I said, ‘It’s the sun because I wear a scarf and the sun’s bleached it.’[laughs] I don’t think he believed me though. He took it in but that was one of the funny things. So, yes. I had a blonde fringe.
PE: Oh, that’s brilliant. Thank you very much, Betty. That’s wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. I’m going to switch the camera off now. Okay.
BW: Oh [laughs] I thought you’d switched it off before.
PE: No. No. No.
BW: Oh dear.
PE: No, that’s, that’s brilliant. Thank, thank you very much, Betty. I’m going to switch it off now.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Betty Welton
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Paul Espin
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-04
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:35:19 Audio Recording
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AWeltonB150604, PWeltonB1501
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Description
An account of the resource
Betty Welton was born in 1924. She left school at the age of fourteen, and at the age of seventeen and a half joined the Women’s Land Army. She saw this as an opportunity to escape her home circumstances. On receiving her papers she travelled from her home town of Wakefield to Buckinghamshire, where she was billeted in Amersham. Her job was shepherdess, and milking the cows. On one occasion she was kicked by a cow, sprained her wrist and went home on leave. When she rejoined she was sent to work at Little Ponton near Grantham and stayed with a family in private billets. When she was billeted near RAF Binbrook she used to hear the Lancaster bombers and count them as they flew over, and remembers cycling to Lincoln to the cinema. She was also a volunteer for the ARP.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Grantham
England--Wakefield
England--Yorkshire
England--Caistor (Rural district)
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
Air Raid Precautions
animal
civil defence
entertainment
home front
Lancaster
RAF Binbrook
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1246/16331/BNealeETHNealeETHv020001.2.jpg
4c746a5446e8f9e0822bbc19d051e827
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22a97b5c30b92ce5750b37d45e9e0c90
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Neale, Ted
E T H Neale
Description
An account of the resource
123 items. The collection concerns Edward Thomas Henry Neale (b. 1922, 1395951 Royal Air Force) who served as a navigator with 37 Squadron in North Africa, the Middle East and Italy. The collection contains his training notebooks from South Africa as well as propaganda leaflets dropped by the allies in the Mediterranean theatre.
The collection also contains a photograph album, navigation logs and target photographs.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Alison Neale and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-31
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Neale, ETH
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
What a place to be, whilst there was a war on. I was eighteen years of age, the date was the first Saturday in September 1940. the time was five o’clock in the evening, The place was the ‘New Fuze” factory in the Woolwich Arsenal, just inside the “fourth Gate” along the Plumstead Rd. The Woolwich Arsenal was a massive munitions factory fronting the River Thames for about 3 1/2 miles, extending raggedly up to 3/4 miles into Plumstead & Woolwich. In the New Fuze factory was a complex of buildings housing machines from very large to very small, producing fuzes for large Naval guns & torpedos down to small machines, turning out watch proportioned parts for delicate fuzes. It operated night & day. I had left school & was working as a machine operator, filling in while awaiting a start as an apprentice tool-maker in the Gun & Carriage tool room some distance away. This being Saturday the day & night shifts changed over and being on the day shift I, and many others were waiting “on the clock” at 5pm to clock out & cycle home to Eltham, about 3 miles away. As we waited the air raid siren sounded, this didn’t cause much concern because we had heard the sirens go many times whilst we were on night shift, the order was given always to leave the factory & go to the shelters some yards away, our usual practice at night was to get on top of the air raid shelters, cover up with a tarpaulin & watch the searchlights catch & then lose the intruding aircraft which we felt were recconocence [sic]? since they never seemed to drop any bombs, meanwhile the anti-aircraft guns were blazing away, always it seemed in the wrong direction to the searchlights.
We had started to clock off when we heard a succession of bangs one after the other regularly, then someone, more knowledgeable shouted bombs & we made a dive for the air raid shelter, all getting jammed together
[page break]
in the door, the bangs continued past us the nearest about 10 – 15 yards away. One bomb struck a little workshop with a blacksmiths forge, full of [inserted] red [/inserted] hot coals, this scattered all over a small car park, landing on the roofs of cars which had part cloth roofs, it burnt through the roofs into the cars, setting them alight, one one car made it from the edge of the car park on to the road, he jumped it from the edge of the car park on to the road, he was sitting there shouting, “does anyone want a lift to Bexleyheath”, the car looked a wreck, all the lights & chrome trims were hanging off but it was running. it was a “Renault tourer” & off he went, the rest got sorted out & got our bikes to go home, people were streaming out of the gate, some bleeding from cuts from glass from the buildings. I cycled into the Woolwich square & turned on to the Eltham Road, which led up through the ROYAL ARTILLERY Barracks, by this time the fighters were in amongst the bombers, air planes were going down parachutes were swinging down, shrapnel & bullet clips were raining down & the anti-aircraft guns on the common were making a hell of a racket, as I passed the gates of the barracks in Mill Hill the soldiers were looked out from their billets & called me to take shelter, it appears that they had come back from Dunkirk, as it quietened down I made my way home, as I got up to Shooters Hill I looked back and saw fires raging everywhere, the road leading to Woolwich was solid with fire appliances & ambulances & rescue squads. I went back to the New Fuze factory the next day, but it had disappeared most of the machines were blackened and still standing, many of them operated with oil for coolant & cutting & the floor
[page break]
had been made of wood blocks & was oil soaked so it had burnt readily. The next day I learnt that the last of the stick of bombs that missed me had hit the air-raid shelter where my cousins husband had been sheltering, she had just given birth to their first & only child!
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
What a place to be, whilst there was a war on
Description
An account of the resource
Ted Neale's account of when he was 18 at the Woolwich Arsenal. He tells of a bombing attack at the factory, which started just as they were leaving at 5pm.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ted Neale
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three handwritten sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BNealeETHNealeETHv020001,
BNealeETHNealeETHv020002,
BNealeETHNealeETHv020003
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940-09
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frank Batten
Air Raid Precautions
bombing
civil defence
home front
shelter
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1246/16360/MNealeETH1395951-150731-0200003.2.jpg
4577b4fc20a547dd498147b4bedf6736
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Neale, Ted
E T H Neale
Description
An account of the resource
123 items. The collection concerns Edward Thomas Henry Neale (b. 1922, 1395951 Royal Air Force) who served as a navigator with 37 Squadron in North Africa, the Middle East and Italy. The collection contains his training notebooks from South Africa as well as propaganda leaflets dropped by the allies in the Mediterranean theatre.
The collection also contains a photograph album, navigation logs and target photographs.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Alison Neale and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-31
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Neale, ETH
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
1
Two events marked or marred September 1939 [sic] In order of importance was the start of the Second Great War, which was heralded by a false alarm air raid siren, the next event was my school days at the Woolwich Polytechnic were ended and [inserted] I [/inserted] was looking for a job. I found that a motor garage in Bexleyheath Broadway would take me on as a machine operator & setter, making components for war weapons. The owner was a Belgian Gent who during a lunchtime break declared that if the German army were marching down the Broadway he would be there with his hand extended in the NAZI salute, after the war, this Gent became Mayor of Bexleyheath, at this time he bought up all the machinery from the old defunct Tram yard which was near to where Marks & Sparks [Marks & Spencer] is today, he advertised it for sale the next day in the Evening News and it went straight away, making him an excellent profit, this machinery was needed for the war effort.
There being no real future in this job I applied for a job as an apprentice to the trade of Instrument maker at SIEMENS and was accepted. Starting on this job I was paired off with a skilled tradesman to learn the trade, while helping out on the guillotine, I was told not to touch the treale [sic], in the course of events I stood on the treade [sic], the machine went through its cycle and I had cut my trainers two-foot rule into two pieces, not a very auspicious start. I wasn’t too happy in this job, so I applied for an apprenticeship as a tool-maker [sic] at the Woolwich Arsenal, the great big munitions factory beside the Thames in Woolwich. Having been accepted I was told to report to the NEW FUZE [sic] factory, a little way inside the fourth GATE by the Plumstead Bridge, where I could work
[page break]
2
Making FUZES [sic] of all shapes & sizes, until they could make provision for me at one of the various toolrooms in the site, these jobs were very repetitive and boring but I was assured that it would only be for several weeks, the man was a prophet as I will show
7th SEPTEMBER (SATURDAY) 1940 4.58 P.M
Why so precise, [sic] because it is etched in stark reallity [sic] in my head. Saturday was change over [sic] shift day, we had had a week of days and would come to work on Sunday evening, to start the night shift. We would line up outside of the factory at the clocking off clock, we were allowed to be there two minutes before time, usually when this two minutes arrived someone would produce a key, open the front of the clock and advance it by two minutes and get away two minutes early. The air raid siren had sounded but we ignored it, since we had had so many false alarms, however, two minutes before five o’clock we heard a loud bang, then another bang about a second or two later, someone more knowledgeable, shouted out “BOMBS” as more bangs followed, a mad rush was made to the nearest air raid shelter which was quite close by, however the crush was so great, that nobody got in, as the bangs continued, coming nearer, the nearest one landed across the road, about twenty yards away on the little car park, the next one, the very last, we heard later, landed on an air raid shelter, one of the occupants was my cousins husband, all in the shelter were killed. Injured people started coming from buildings across the road, many bleeding badly, where the bomb blast had sucked the windows from
[page break]
3
the upper floors, a great rush took place to get away from the Arsenal, and I got my bike and pedalled off along the Plumpstead [sic] Road towards home, as I went I saw our fighter attacking the bombers, wheeling round the sky about, machine guns rattling away, planes smoking, parachutes coming down
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Ted Neale's early war memoirs
Description
An account of the resource
Ted Neale describes the start of the war and the end of his schooling. After a couple of jobs, which he left quickly, he moved to the Woolwich Arsenal as an apprentice tool maker. On Saturday 7th September 1940 an air raid destroyed the factory, killing all those who had reached the shelter.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ted Neale
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three handwritten sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MNealeETH1395951-150731-0200001,
MNealeETH1395951-150731-0200002,
MNealeETH1395951-150731-0200003
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939-09
1940-09-07
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Lesley Wain
Air Raid Precautions
bombing
civil defence
shelter
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/501/22562/MCurnockRM1815605-171114-016.2.pdf
c215259212e8a221a69e87300af18941
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Curnock, Richard
Richard Murdock Curnock
R M Curnock
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Curnock, RM
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-18
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
92 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Richard Curnock (1924, 1915605 Royal Air Force), his log book, letters, photographs and prisoner of war magazines. He flew operations with 425 Squadron before being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Richard Curnock and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Kriegie December 2005
Description
An account of the resource
News-sheet of the RAF ex-POW Association. This edition covers the 60th anniversary of VE day, Great Escapes at the Imperial War Museum, requests for help, Obituaries, Sixtieth anniversary of the Great Escape, Recco report on ex-POWs, Kriegies help RAF apprentices, Mystery tour of Munich article, The Collector article about a POW who repeatedly visited the crash site of his Halifax, Return to Sagan, the Long March revisited, plus photographs and sketches of POW life.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
The RAF ex-POW Association
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2005-12
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
16 printed sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MCurnockRM1815605-171114-016
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
British Army
Royal Navy
Royal Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
England--Plymouth
Germany--Munich
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Spremberg
Poland--Żagań
Germany--Bad Fallingbostel
Poland
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Devon
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
10 Squadron
106 Squadron
144 Squadron
544 Squadron
601 Squadron
619 Squadron
air gunner
Air Raid Precautions
aircrew
arts and crafts
bale out
Caterpillar Club
civil defence
Elizabeth II, Queen of Great Britain (1926 - 2022)
escaping
flight engineer
Goering, Hermann (1893-1946)
Halifax
Hampden
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
killed in action
Lancaster
memorial
mess
Mosquito
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
Nissen hut
Photographic Reconnaissance Unit
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Benson
RAF Duxford
RAF Halton
RAF Hendon
RAF Northolt
RAF St Athan
Red Cross
shot down
Spitfire
Stalag 3A
Stalag Luft 3
Stalag Luft 4
Stalag Luft 6
Stalag Luft 7
the long march
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/495/17735/PCollerAS17010002.1.jpg
9eaab97aaf061407c2268345af43eace
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Coller, Allan Stanley
A S Coller
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Coller, AS
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. An oral history interview with Allan Coller (1924, 1874018 Royal Air Force). Also a number of other items associated with the Air Cadets and his service in Sri Lanka and India including a scrapbook of photographs.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Allan Coller and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
AS Coller Scrapbook Page 2
Description
An account of the resource
Three items from a scrapbook:
Item 1 is a newspaper cutting titled 'Venture Adventure is ATC Motto'.
Item 2 is an Air Training Corps membership card for AS Coller. It has a caption 'Originally named Air Defence Cadet Corps ADCC'.
Item 3 is a certificate issued to AS Collier [sic] for attendance at a training course for Air Raid Precautions.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One sheet from a scrapbook
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCollerAS17010002
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Luton
England--Bedfordshire
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-01-31
1941-07-02
1942-07-31
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
Air Raid Precautions
civil defence
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1488/30256/MRennisonJ[Ser -Dob]-160224-03.pdf
6a0541d108d58629d533099f1864c712
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Rennison, John
J Rennison
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-02-24
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Rennison, J
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. The collection contains a map of German aeronautical and defence data, Italian language propaganda leaflets a fire guard's pocket chart and an air raid precautions book of cigarette cards.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by John Rennison and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Air raid precautions album
Description
An account of the resource
An album to contain a series of cigarette cards of national importance. Shows pictures of some of the things that the government and local authorities are working out for the protection of the general public. Includes: window protection, splinter proof walls, dugouts, shelters, incendiary bombs (effects and extinguishing), types of fire pumps, respirators, anti gas clothing, actions in event of gas and air defences.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
W D & H O Wills
IBCC Digital Archive
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Cover and eighteen page colour printed book with text ands artwork
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Artwork
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MRennisonJ[Ser#-Dob]-160224-03
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Air Raid Precautions
bombing
civil defence
firefighting
home front
incendiary device
shelter
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1778/31544/PDentJ20060011.1.jpg
2c8543db11c121c5993f499c7600b869
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Dent, John
J Dent
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2020-10-23
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Dent, J
Description
An account of the resource
Forty-two items and two sub-collections containing a total of forty-one items. The collection concerns John Dent (b. 1924, 2206473 Royal Air Force) who flew as a flight engineer on Lancaster of 44 Squadron in late 1944 early 1945. Collection contains documents, his flying log book, course notes, and photographs of people, places and aircraft. Two photograph albums in sub-collections contains images of his wedding as well as aircraft, RAF personnel, and air training corps activities.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Geraldene Dent and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Air Raid Precaution badge
Description
An account of the resource
Silver badge with crown and 'ARP' letters.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One metal badge
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Physical object
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PDentJ20060011
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Air Raid Precautions
civil defence
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1807/44140/MKilburnG[Ser -DoB]-170310-01.pdf
79c2d3b0ae7f020f56459b76e79d5870
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Kilburn, Gerard
G Kilburn
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Kilburn, G
Description
An account of the resource
6 items. The collection concerns Gerard Kilburn (Royal Air Force) and contains a memoir about the bombing of Liverpool and photographs.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Gerard Kilburn and catalogued by Benjamin Turner.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underline] Some memories of the war (1939-1945) [/underline] from a woman who was a teenager then.
War broke out on 3rd September 1939. This was a hot sunny Sunday in Liverpool where I lived.
[underline] Evacuation [/underline].
That week the [underline] Evacuation of children [/underline] began. Children were sent away from the big cities to the countryside for safety.
Lime Street Station was filled with children of all sizes and ages with gas masks in cardboard boxes over their shoulders; labels pinned to their lapels gave their name and identification number.
Everyone had to carry an identity card.
I wasstaken [sic] was taken by train into the country- the journey was long. The whole school was taken on arrival to a church hall, and we waited to be collected by ‘someone’. We did not know who it would be. Those children who were not taken by someone were taken by bus to a house or cottage for the duration of the war.
Not all children stayed that long. The cottage I was sent to had no gas, no electricity, no running water or indoor toilet. The toilet was in a hut at the very bottom of a long garden. There was no bathroom- we had our baths in a tin bath in front of the kitchen fire. My mother was not happy about me being away from home and she came to collect me after one week. She said that if we were going to die then it would be better to die together. It so happened that we all lived safely through the war.
[underline] Sounds of War [/underline] – [underline] An Air Raid [/underline]
The sounds of war were very different from the sounds of a country at peace. When there was an air raid the sirens wailed loudly and eerily. We would look at the clocks quickly before running to our Anderson shelter in the garden. If it was 10 or 12 o’clock pm we knew there would be a long night of bombing to come. If it was 2 or 3 a.m. then maybe it would only last a matter of hours.
Sometimes there were two or three air raids in the same night and some in the day-time too.
As we ran we would see the searchlights scanning the sky for the enemy aircraft.
[page break]
The sound of enemy aircraft was different from our own planes.
They used to switch their engines off to avoid being detected. We would then hear a drrm…drrm…drrm…drrm…. This was an ominous sound.
You could also hear the scream of the bombs as they fell through the air. First there would be a ‘descending’ whine, then an explosion which was sometimes louder than thunder and at other times a dull ‘crump’ in the distance.
We would listen hard for the comforting sound of our own anti-aircraft guns and rockets fighting back at the enemy. Sometimes, however, these were silent-especially during the May Blitz in Liverpool, when the bombing was long and incessant for ten nights from 1st -10th May.
The most wonderful sound of all was that of the ‘all clear’. The siren would sound again but this time it did not wail but gave out a long, clear, steady note to announce that the ‘raiders’ had passed. Maybe, though, we would return to bed, only to hear the air raid siren again and so rush back to the shelter.
[underline] Sights in Liverpool [/underline]
Incendiary (fire) bombs were a real danger. Huge metal tanks full of water were positioned on almost every street corner. These were called [underline] E.W.S tanks [/underline] Emergency Water Supply tanks.
More E.W.S. were carried in huge pipes. (about 35cm in diameter) which were on the edges of the pavement and had to be stepped over.
People in uniforms could be seen too. [underline] Air Raid Wardens [/underline] wore overalls and tin hats; [underline] soldiers [/underline], sailors and airmen were often in Liverpool en route between North America and Europe. Liverpool was the Western approaches port and the town was always busy. There were Americans, Canadians, Poles and Norwegians. The French sailors wore little ‘pom-poms’ on their hats.
[underline] The Black Out [/underline]
For fear of air raids it was necessary to ensure absolute darkness at night. This would make places less easy to find. At first no torches could be carried. When it was eventually allowed they had to have black tape over them so that only a little light would show. Torches always had to be carried pointing downwards. Car lights also had to be covered.
[Page break]
(A few cars had huge ‘balloons’ full of gas on top of them to save petrol).
At the windows you could see blackout curtains or windows with nets of tape pasted over them to prevent glass shattering.
People never moved about without their gas masks- these had to be carried elsewhere.
In the sky were huge barrage balloons.
We didn’t see a banana for over six years.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Some memories of the war
Description
An account of the resource
Memoir detailing a teenage girl's experiences of the war. The document details experiences of evacuation, the blackouts, sounds of the war during air raids and what they saw on the streets of Liverpool.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1939-09-03
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lancashire
England--Liverpool
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three page type written document
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription. Under review
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MKilburnG[Ser#-DoB]-170310-01
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
William Cragg
Air Raid Precautions
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
childhood in wartime
evacuation
home front
incendiary device
shelter