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Although Dorothy Clayton(nee Redshaw) was born in 1941 at Hazel Grove, Stockport, and was just four years old when World War II ended, she has remarkably vivid memories of wartime at home.
The sirens had gone off, and then we had heard the bombers going overhead to drop their loads on the docks at Manchester and Salford. It was now quiet, although the 'all clear' hadn't gone and Grandma decided she wanted a cup of tea.
We couldn't go to the shelter because Grandma was bedridden, and so we all huddled together in the beds upstairs. She was a bit of a tarter and liked her own way, so Mother crept downstairs to put the kettle on, and I went as well to keep her company.
We were both terrified but it had to be done. I headed straight away for my den underneath the big square table in the middle of the room, where the long, hanging tablecloth made it an ideal hidey-hole for a four year old.
I heard the gas mantle pop as mother applied the match and the room was flooded with a warm glow. Immediately there was a loud banging on the front door and an angry voice shouted, "Turn that bloody light out."
There was a shriek from mother as she turned off the gas, and the next minute she was underneath the table with me. Grandma didn't get her tea that night.
I was born in that house, a little two up and two down in the back streets of Hazel Grove, with a lavatory at the bottom of the backyard. Grandma rented it for three shillings a week from the Co-op, which owned most of the houses thereabouts.
On wintry evenings we would sit round the big black range that filled almost one wall of the room. The oven at the side would get warm from the fire and after tea we would put our nightclothes in there, along with four bricks wrapped up in pieces of towel.
We children never went to bed early but would sit up with Mum and Grandma and listen to the news on the wireless. After the news we would get undressed in front of the fire, then carry a hot brick upstairs to warm our icy cold beds.
Dorothy Clayton, 2002
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