From Poorhouse to Penthouse
Aug 11, 2016 20:00:01 GMT
Post by shred on Aug 11, 2016 20:00:01 GMT
From Poorhouse To Penthouse by Roy Maxwell & Constance Vayne
Roy Maxwell was born in Rudman Street, Salford, in 1932. At an early age he and his parents moved to Church Avenue, Weaste. Roy attended Seedley Council Primary School, West Liverpool Street School and Salford Grammar School. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London, 1956.
The following passages describe Roy's memories of the Salford Blitzkrieg. They have been copied here with the kind permission of Roy and Constance. Our thanks to you both.
Night after night, the banshee wail of the air-raid sirens would send families scuttling to the comparative safety of the sturdy brick and reinforced concrete shelters.
Eventually, weary of the monotonously regular sleep filled rush from the warm bed and through to the backyard shelter, most families began to sleep in them every night. Jim Anderson, Miller's father was a handy joiner, and knocked up bunk beds in the shelters for most of the people in the street. The cramped space of the airless damp cells, filled with the stench of wet concrete and fear, sapped the vitality.
Every night we used to dread the howl of the sirens, and the heavy drone of the Luftwaffe bombers, punctuated by the long whistling scream and crunching impact of bomb after bomb, and the thundering staccato rhythm of anti-aircraft barrage. High above this panic-stricken hell, searchlights patterned the dark, swinging and probing whilst tracer shells whistled in their wake, tattooing the night. Below, incendiary bombs made gigantic bonfires of factories and warehouses, throwing their crackling flames skyward in the wind. The high explosives blasted great holes in the cities, hurling the debris with vicious abandon.
We were placed perilously close to Salford Docks and the heavy industrial estate of Trafford Park, and one night, Christmas of 1941, a bombing inaccuracy of a few hundred yards, devastated row upon row of terraced dwellings, in a line neatly parallel with the dockyards. All that remained was a scattering of pillbox like shelters, the houses gutted and flattened, their pitiful contents spewed amongst the debris, baring their souls to the chill morning light of Boxing Day.
My father had enlisted in the Auxiliary Fire Service spending at least every other night on one of the fire engines racing around the city to combat the thousands of incendiary bombs, dropped from the sky by the dreaded Luftwaffe. One of our local air-raid wardens, Allan's Father, out every night, blowing a whistle, or helping to dig out injured and the dead, shouting to the careless to "Put that bloody light out!" whilst anxiously scanning the sky with a prayer for his family. He was running, carrying a child from an incendiary hit house, when a chunk of anti-aircraft shrapnel crashed through his helmet and almost cut him in half.
He was the only major casualty in our immediate circle, the rest of us were physically unscathed, apart from two suicides. Poor Mrs Figgins who, having been informed that her only son, in the Merchant Navy had been posted "Missing, believed killed", went promptly upstairs and hanged herself from the banister rail with a clothesline. Across the back alley, an old man I never knew, for no apparent reason beyond that of the terror shared by us all, took his open razor and cut his throat, even using a mirror to make sure he was accurate.
For the children the whole thing, the blitz, the sirens, the guns, aircraft, bombs and fires, was a great adventure. We were all cloaked in the myth of personal salvation, nothing could happen to us, all this that our parents dreaded was really just a gigantic game. Until Allan's father was killed just two streets away, we never really thought that it could touch us, only other people. From then we felt and communicated our fear. The air-raid was no longer a giggle, the shelters were quieter now, the children were stricken with terror as the warning sirens wailed, and wept with fright as the bombs screamed down.
You can read a generous portion of the book here and is available at Lulu here
Roy Maxwell was born in Rudman Street, Salford, in 1932. At an early age he and his parents moved to Church Avenue, Weaste. Roy attended Seedley Council Primary School, West Liverpool Street School and Salford Grammar School. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London, 1956.
The following passages describe Roy's memories of the Salford Blitzkrieg. They have been copied here with the kind permission of Roy and Constance. Our thanks to you both.
Night after night, the banshee wail of the air-raid sirens would send families scuttling to the comparative safety of the sturdy brick and reinforced concrete shelters.
Eventually, weary of the monotonously regular sleep filled rush from the warm bed and through to the backyard shelter, most families began to sleep in them every night. Jim Anderson, Miller's father was a handy joiner, and knocked up bunk beds in the shelters for most of the people in the street. The cramped space of the airless damp cells, filled with the stench of wet concrete and fear, sapped the vitality.
Every night we used to dread the howl of the sirens, and the heavy drone of the Luftwaffe bombers, punctuated by the long whistling scream and crunching impact of bomb after bomb, and the thundering staccato rhythm of anti-aircraft barrage. High above this panic-stricken hell, searchlights patterned the dark, swinging and probing whilst tracer shells whistled in their wake, tattooing the night. Below, incendiary bombs made gigantic bonfires of factories and warehouses, throwing their crackling flames skyward in the wind. The high explosives blasted great holes in the cities, hurling the debris with vicious abandon.
We were placed perilously close to Salford Docks and the heavy industrial estate of Trafford Park, and one night, Christmas of 1941, a bombing inaccuracy of a few hundred yards, devastated row upon row of terraced dwellings, in a line neatly parallel with the dockyards. All that remained was a scattering of pillbox like shelters, the houses gutted and flattened, their pitiful contents spewed amongst the debris, baring their souls to the chill morning light of Boxing Day.
My father had enlisted in the Auxiliary Fire Service spending at least every other night on one of the fire engines racing around the city to combat the thousands of incendiary bombs, dropped from the sky by the dreaded Luftwaffe. One of our local air-raid wardens, Allan's Father, out every night, blowing a whistle, or helping to dig out injured and the dead, shouting to the careless to "Put that bloody light out!" whilst anxiously scanning the sky with a prayer for his family. He was running, carrying a child from an incendiary hit house, when a chunk of anti-aircraft shrapnel crashed through his helmet and almost cut him in half.
He was the only major casualty in our immediate circle, the rest of us were physically unscathed, apart from two suicides. Poor Mrs Figgins who, having been informed that her only son, in the Merchant Navy had been posted "Missing, believed killed", went promptly upstairs and hanged herself from the banister rail with a clothesline. Across the back alley, an old man I never knew, for no apparent reason beyond that of the terror shared by us all, took his open razor and cut his throat, even using a mirror to make sure he was accurate.
For the children the whole thing, the blitz, the sirens, the guns, aircraft, bombs and fires, was a great adventure. We were all cloaked in the myth of personal salvation, nothing could happen to us, all this that our parents dreaded was really just a gigantic game. Until Allan's father was killed just two streets away, we never really thought that it could touch us, only other people. From then we felt and communicated our fear. The air-raid was no longer a giggle, the shelters were quieter now, the children were stricken with terror as the warning sirens wailed, and wept with fright as the bombs screamed down.
You can read a generous portion of the book here and is available at Lulu here