Memories Of When The Bombs Passed Over

By Michael Pickford My home town is Buxton in Derbyshire were I spent my formative years living with my Mum, Dad and sister Jill. My Gran and Grandad lived at 2 Charles street, Fairfield. Grandad worked for the London, Midland and Scottish railways, then during the First World War with Germany whilst serving with The Royal Scots Fusiliers. He had passed through Ypres to fight through the battle of Somme in France and to Mons where he lost many of his friends. He was a fine, proud, ex soldier and when he died I found in his chest of drawers his original Mons Star, still in its original and unmounted ribbon with his regimental number and date issue in 1919. Gran was everyone’s dream of a Grannie who baked bread such as you have never tasted. My Mum and Dad had purchased a house on Victoria Park road in Fairfield Buxton when all there was around it were fields of green and dry stone walls. Most of my memories which come to mind now would be from the time before I reached ten years old, and through the war with Germany. Dad was in a reserved occupation with the I.C.I (Imperial Chemical Industries) and was in the Home Guard. Mum would take me with her when she went shopping, which was usually the CO-OP Wholesale Society on Bridge street, Buxton. Whatever you wanted to purchase was of course covered by coupons in ration books. Everything was scarce and the stock phrase for refusal was always “Don’t you know there’s a war on.” I remember sugar in blue bags, MOF orange juice in flat bottles, Dolly tubs and pouches and big blocks of household soap. I still have the last issue of family ration books. Chocolates and fruit, you never saw unless you passed a greengrocer as the fruit arrived. I was shopping for my Mum once and a fruit shop on Holker road had just received a delivery of fresh apples. I spent most of my money for the days shopping on these apples, but Mum and Dad weren’t angry because it was such a rarity when you saw fresh fruit. All the vegetables we had were grown on allotments on Bench road with the advertisind slogan “Dig for Victory”. At weekends, you could go to the fields near Corbar woods on Lightwood road in Buxton and watch the Home Guards on manoeuvres. I didn’t really know what they were doing, except that they were supposed to be capturing a deserted farmhouse in a field, which seemed a long way off. I never really did find out if the captured the farmhouse! At Dove Holes outside Buxton there was a prisoner of war camp for Italians and all the POWs as they were called, were allowed into Buxton at the weekends. With their Latin features they were easy to spot because they wore brown battledress tunics and trousers with POW across their backs. One evening at Victoria Park road my Mum and quite a few of the neighbours were on the front. There was a lot of consternation as the sky was brilliant red and everyone was frightened. They thought it some fearsome weapon had been released from Germany. Grandad however was paying us a visit and put all the ladies at rest as he walked towards them saying “You daft things, its only the sun setting!” There were some equally frightening times, a lot of night my Mum used to put me together with my sister Jill, who would be only one year old, under the table in our front room. Jill was fitted with a large gas mask, which was designed for infants. As soon we heard the air raid sirens wail we had to this until the all clear sounded. The drone of the Dornier German Bombers is something I will never forget. They were passing overhead on their way to bomb Manchester and Sheffield, and although Manchester was some twenty miles away you could hear the awesome thuds and explosions as the bombs landed. One night we heard one fall right outside Fairfield and the house really shook. I seem to remember it had been jettisoned by a German Bomber returning to Germany. I paid three pence once to go and see a German Messerscmitt Fighter plane which was on display behind a big tarpaulin in Sylvan Car Park, Buxton. It had been shot down and all the money, which was collected from people viewing it went to the war effort. I used to stay with my Gran some nights and she would twist the controls on the big radio they had until you heard “Germany calling, Germany calling.” It was Lord Haw Haw broadcasting from Berlin, I didn’t understand what it was about but Gran used to laugh then turn it off. Everybody used to listen to Alvar Liddell on the radio with the news. It was always preceded with a drumbeat when it was broadcast to Europe. I think that it would probably 1944 when the most frightening thing I saw or have ever seen for that matter made everybody think that the world really was about to end. My Auntie Irene was staying with us at Victoria Park road, she worked for the Norwich Union, which at the time Spa Hotel in Higher Buxton. It was late evening and e could hear from outside the house a noise wich was like no other. Everyone was outside, although it was all those years ago, I can still see the sky full of orange. It appeared orange whichever way I looked. It was awesome and frightening. Everybody could only stand and stare, nobody knew what they were and there were so man. They were of course the V. 1s, the Buzz Bombs, the Doodlebugs, the terror weapon which flew unmanned towards its target until the fuel gave out and then it fell to the earth causing terrible explosive damage to both buildings and people. Again like the Dornier Bomber, it was a noise you can never forget, all flying again in the direction of dear old Manchester. At that time and for a long time afterwards, I always thought it if I had been standing on our roof I could have touched them with a clothes prop. There was nothing on the news the next day, security reasons I suppose, but I remember that a couple of Bombers had hit the hills somewhere around Buxton. Most of them had given poor old Manchester a pounding. On the 6th of June 1944, I don’t know whether I was gong to school or on holiday, but I know I was in the kitchen at 83 Victoria Park road. My Mum was upset and crying, Dad at work, and I didn’t know what was wrong. After a while Mum was able to tell me what had been kept a secret from everyone. She was crying because all our brave soldiers, sailors and airmen, together with some from so many other countries, had landed in France. He largest Military Armada ever, they had all gone to fight and possibly die in France. That is why she was crying. It was D-Day, the 6th of June. © Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author.   First published on the BBC People's War website