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My name is Jim Casey, and I was born on the 10th June 1928 in a terraced house in Sydney Street, Bradford, Manchester.
Immediately behind the row of terraced houses was a six-storey cotton mill where the looms and other machinery worked non-stop day and night with the accompanying noises, which I suppose one had to get used to.
At the end of the street was the canal that the barges used to transport their loads of cotton down to the Manchester Ship Canal to waiting ships that would then take the cotton to countries around the world.
When I was eleven years old, my father was admitted into Withington Hospital where he passed away. Both he and my Mother worked in the mills from the time that they left school.
On the death of my Dad my Mother had to continue to work in the mill in order to care for myself and two younger sisters, as there was no welfare payments in those days.
We later moved to Ivy Street, Gorton, another suburb of Manchester, where we lived in another terraced house with one living room/dining room and kitchen downstairs and two bedrooms up a very narrow staircase.
There was no bathroom. The toilet was a brick structure in the paved back yard. This is where we lived during WW2. The council built brick air raid shelters in all the back yards; they had a thick concrete roof on them and were just big enough inside to take a double bed.
My Mother and my two sisters and myself slept in there every night for two years. We had air raids all night every night and, as there was no door on the shelter, I fixed up a blanket to block out the light from the searchlights and the lights from exploding bombs.
The Germans used to drop high explosive bombs and incendiary bombs. During this period I attended school at St. Francis Monastery School.
After one night of air raids I found that an incendiary bomb had fallen through the roof and through my desk, leaving a large burnt hole through the desk. My school was next to Crossley Motors Factory and this had been the target for the bombers that night.
An Englishman known as Lord Haw Haw had gone over to the Germans and used to broadcast every day to England from the German radio station and he would tell us where the German bombers would strike that night, and his warnings always came true.
When I was 12 years old I joined the ATC (Air Training Corps) Belle Vue Squadron, we were given an air force blue uniform and attended a drill hall a few nights a week.
We were taken on Camps to Squires Gate RAF Station at Blackpool occasionally, where we used to have flights in Airo Anson planes which were a bit risky at times as German Stukas used to strafe the beaches on their way in on bombing raids.
I will continue My Memories soon. Regards to all in Blighty.
Jim Casey, Queensland, Australia, 2001.
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