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George Spenceley recalls his childhood memories of Middlesbrough and how his large family coped with life in World War II and with the happy and sad events of family life.
As we were a very large family, dad was provided with materials to build a double air-raid shelter. He and a couple of his friends dug a very big hole in the back garden about three or four feet deep.
They bolted corrugated sheeting together to form the roof and sides then lined the bottom and lower sides with concrete, covered the top with a good layer of soil and that helped to hide it. Finally dad built a shed construction to cover the entrance and placed a number of bunks inside for us, with a bit of luck we'd be safe.
The air-raids at night were very frightening, the siren would give the warning, we'd all get up out of our beds, put on our coats as there was no time to dress, collect our gas masks and go out of the back door to the shelter.
Mam and the older ones brought the patchwork quilts off the beds. The sky would be lit with beams of light from the searchlights trying to seek out the German bombers as they slipped from cloud to cloud. Once located all the lights would turn on the invading planes.
The planes couldn't travel low over our area because of the number of barrage balloons in the skies around Middlesbrough and along the river Tees. They couldn't risk getting tangled in the balloons wiring but the constant drone of their engines would sound louder and louder.
The guns from the local army camp would start firing trying to hit the planes and bring them down. When we sat in the shelter the funny part about it was that we always talked quietly as if afraid someone might hear.
Looking through a crack in the side of the shed it looked brighter than day outside, it was a blue-white light and so bright. 'I wonder what's happening out there' Mam whispered, then suddenly the door opened making us all jump, it was Dad.
'Where's the bucket?' he shouted. Mam answered, 'Upstairs'. Dad retorted, 'Upstairs, whereabouts upstairs'. Mam spoke quietly so the neighbours couldn't hear, 'In the bedroom Dad'. 'For goodness sake hasn't it been emptied yet?' he said.
It was used as a chamber pot in the bedroom at night as there was no toilet upstairs. Dad had wanted it urgently to put out some flares that had been dropped in a field next to our house by the German bomber, it was those flares that had made the brilliant white light we'd seen earlier.
Like all the other members of the family, I worried about going back into the house after an air raid in case a German spy had sneaked in while we were in the shelter, our imaginations always ran wild on such occasions.
On one particular night the bombing was very heavy, a bomb seemed to be screaming down then it stopped. 'That was a whistling bomb' Mam said quietly, 'and it hasn't gone off yet. It sounded so close I wonder where it is?'
There should have been an explosion but nothing had happened. Sitting very quietly we all thought the bomb was very near to our house, all was silent, there was no drone of planes or noise from the guns just silence, followed then by the all clear.
The following day I'd returned from afternoon school and was playing by the side of the house when a very loud rumble and thud seemed to come from the area of South Bank.
Looking across towards the Gas Works there was smoke, dust and pieces of debris billowing up towards the sky, the ground shook. I quickly made a beeline into the house.
I now understand that it was St. Peter's school in South Bank that had been blown up by the bomb that had been dropped the previous night.
We were sitting on the ground at another time when an aeroplane flew very low round and round the estate. I was told to go inside as it may be a German plane taking aerial photographs of the steel works. Suddenly the plane banked and hundreds of pieces of paper dropped from it as it passed over our house.
They were propaganda leaflets and I think they had the face of Hitler and four Jack-boots on them, with the slogan 'TO HELL WITH HITLER'.
George Spenceley, 2002
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