Your Wartime Memories

The dreaded gas mask
I went to St. Lukes school from 1938 to 1949. During wartime we had gasmask drill every afternoon in the cloakroom. I hated the smell of the rubber masks, we kept them in a box with a strap to go over the shoulder.

I remember taking it with me when I was evacuated to Bramhall. It isn’t very far from Miles Platting but when you are only five and not with your parents it was like going to the other side of the world. I was away for less than a year. One day when my parents came to visit us my Mum was horrified to find lice in our hair, so a little while after she came to take us home! It was just before the Manchester Blitz.

I remember one night getting out of bed as the sirens sounded we huddled together under the dining table as the bombs dropped on Miles Platting. We lived in Joynson Street and a bomb landed on a row of houses next to ours, all the doors and windows blew out! We were scared stiff but not hurt, that was our only near miss. Thank God. The bomb was probably intended for the Gas Works which was quite close to Joynson Street.
Marion Ross (nee Fox)