My mother (Mam) and father (Dad) have always told me stories about when they were children during the second world war. As an inquisitive child I was always interested in what they had to say, I was into history and army mad, so they always had an eager audience in me! As an adult now and thinking about the grim reality of the situation of their time, it seems ridiculous, the hardships and danger they faced on a daily basis. I wanted to share just a couple of snippets of those stories with you:
Derek and Isabel Taylor are in their 70s and currently live in Hebburn, Tyneside.
“I was born in 1937 and lived in South Shields, so when the war finally reached Tyneside I was about three years old. My first real memory of the bombing was when I was walking along with my mam and the air raid siren started wailing, she grabbed my hand tight and hurried me along, I can still clearly remember looking off towards North Shields and seeing little aeroplanes dropping glowing lights over by the Tynemouth priory area. It turns out that those little planes were pathfinders and the lights were flares to identify the target for that evening. We had a brick and concrete air raid shelter, erected by the council, it was there for years after the war until the council demolished it. I can remember that it had no door, so my mam hung a heavy curtain in front held up by bricks placed on it on the roof! Inside of the shelter and built into one of the walls was a metal rod, it was designed to help to loosen a brick so you could dig your way out if the doorway was blocked. My elder brother and I both tried in vain to move that rod and loosen a brick, we just couldn't do it. I lived in Stevenson Street, when George Potts Street was bombed our back windows were blown out and when Marsden Street was bombed out front windows were blown out!”
Derek William Taylor, b1937, South Shields resident during the war.
“I was born in 1939, just a month or two after war was declared so my memory of the war is in bits and pieces, but, I can remember clearly the night that we were bombed. I lived just where Jarrow bus station is located now, then it was rows and rows of houses, my street was called Clyde Street. We had a brick and concrete shelter in the back yard, when the siren went this particular night, instead of taking to the shelter, we went under the stairs. As the raid began the bombs fell and got louder and louder which meant they were getting closer and closer, then all of a sudden there was an almighty thud and everything went dark. I can remember my mam saying to my grandmother that we were trapped and that the house was probably demolished, I can remember my grandmother lighting a candle as our only light source and seeing it slowly flicker and go out as the oxygen was used up in our little hideaway. My next memory was being dug out of the rubble by a family friend, when we all were safe we noticed that the air raid shelter was completely destroyed. I can also remember hearing German propaganda broadcasts on the wireless, ‘Lord Haw Haw’ (William Joyce, a traitor) would always start the broadcasts by saying in a very nasal voice, “Germany Calling, Germany Calling from the Riechssender in Hamburg”, as a child I heard it as, “...from the ‘right hand side’ of Hamburg”!”
Isabel Taylor nee McLean, b1939, Jarrow resident at time of war.
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