by betty quinton - kiveton and wales history society man called hitler.pdf · by betty quinton ....
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Dedication
I would like to dedicate this book to my lovely daughters, Sue Birch and Jill Knight,
who made it possible for me to put my memories into a book. I would also like to
thank members of Kiveton Park and Wales History Society for their encouragement
to write it.
Special Thanks also to
Naveed Khokhar for the layout and production of the book
BBC photo Library Team in assisting with sourcing the photographic images
Alamy Limited for the use of their photographic images
Getty Images for the use of their photographic images
New York Times Paris Bureau Collection for the use of their photographic images
“That Man called Hitler” - Betty’s War
It was August 1939 and coming up to the end of the school long
summer holiday. I had been ill with measles during the holidays and my
mum and dad thought it would be a good idea to take me to the seaside
before school started back again. I was very excited as I had only been to
Cleethorpes before on the Sunday-school day trip. This time we were
going to sleep there, as well, just for a few days.
The adults at this time were getting worried about a man called Hitler.
It meant very little to me as I helped mum pack a few things in an old
brown case and the three of us caught the train to Cleethorpes from
Kiveton Bridge station. We stayed with an old lady whose son had come
to Kiveton to work down the pit. However it was all overshadowed by
this man called Hitler! Each day before we could go to the beach or
paddling pool we called at Cleethorpes railway station to check what
times the trains ran back to Kiveton in case this man called Hitler,
did not do as he was told. The few days were overshadowed by this, but
we stayed until Saturday, and then caught the train home.
Sunday morning was very different. Mum and Dad had got to listen to
the radio at a certain time for an important announcement about this man
called Hitler. He had not done as he was told to do and so we were at war.
I did not understand the enormity of this and Sunday afternoon was very
much like any other Sunday.
Then back to school. The war was obviously going to affect our lives.
There were arrangements being made at school in case there was an air
raid while we were there; if the school was hit during a raid there would
be many children killed, so Mr Bailey the headmaster had the idea to
disperse the children to houses nearby. Each of the houses involved
would take so many children and care for them until the “all clear”
sounded. Along with 3 friends I was to go to Mr Walker’s shop in Wales
Square. When the sirens went we were to run along Orchard Lane and
Mrs Walker would take care of us until the raid was over. We would sit
under the stairs in her shop and fortunately for us she always had a secret
supply of sweets. When we went back to school the other kids didn’t
think it was fair as sweets were becoming increasingly hard to get hold
of.
At home, we had to get tape to put on our windows. It was stuck on the
glass from corner to corner to prevent flying glass if a bomb was dropped
nearby. Then there was the blackout to deal with. You couldn’t show any
light at all when it went dark, so a variety of ideas surfaced as to how it
could be done. My mum dyed some material black and made curtains for
upstairs. Dad made some frames covered with what he called “bratish
cloth” and these fitted the downstairs windows. They were held in place
by bolts which slotted into the wooden frames. They were successful for
a time, but were changed a number of times over the next five years.
There was also the fear of a gas attack to deal with. The Germans had
used gas on our soldiers in the trenches during the First World War; so
was there a possibility it could be used on civilians this time? Just in case
we all had to have gas masks. My Grandad (Mum’s dad) came to live
with us from Sheffield after my granny died. He helped mum with
shopping etc. and was anxious about the rest of his family who still lived
in Sheffield when the war started. On Mondays, he would fetch his
pension from the Post Office, then call at the shops to get whatever mum
wanted for dinner. I came home from school at dinnertime (there were no
school dinners then) and my dad worked at the pit on “afternoons”, so we
all had dinner together. This particular Monday, my Grandad hadn’t
come back from the shops for some reason. Mum wasn’t very happy; in
fact she was quite cross. I went back to school with a sandwich and dad
had to go to work without his dinner. What had happened to Grandad?
As he was going to the Post Office, Grandad saw two big lorries
unloading boxes at Kiveton Chapel. On his way back, being an
inquisitive old man, he went into the chapel to see what was happening.
They were delivering gas masks! Grandad got involved with the
unloading and when they were all inside, one of the men from the “war
office” said he could try one on for “helping”. They found the right size
for him and fitted it; that one, was to be his gas mask. He was very proud
to be the first person in Kiveton to get his gas mask, but it was quite late
in the afternoon when he got back home. I think he might have been in
trouble with my mum for not bringing the shopping home first.
When I got home from school that afternoon Grandad was very keen to
put on his gas mask to show me. I was terrified at the thought of having
this horrible thing on my face. I didn’t think I would be able to breathe. It
was so bad that at first I wouldn’t try one on when my turn came and the
lady who was fitting them got very cross with me. They hadn’t invented a
special one for children at that stage so my gas mask was just a smaller
version of the adult one. Later children got a special gas mask that looked
like Mickey Mouse and it wasn’t so frightening. However, in the end
necessity prevailed and I came to terms with mine.
Children trying on their gas masks at school
Later in the war the Germans invented a new kind of gas and we all had
to have an extra metal filter fitted to our masks to cope with it. The filter
was green in colour and was fastened to the gas mask with a kind of tape.
Gasmasks came in a cardboard box with a string fastened so it could be
carried on your shoulder. During that first winter the box got damaged by
rain and snow as you had to take it wherever you went. My mum made a
cover for the box out of some old raincoat material. Then someone hit on
the brilliant idea of doing away with the box and making a waterproof
bag the same shape as the gas mask. This was not nearly as bulky as the
box and the idea soon caught on.
Some entrepreneur also thought up the idea of a siren suit (very much
like today’s “onesies”) which you pulled on over your pyjamas when the
sirens went.
The siren was the blower that had previously been used to call the miners
to work. It was used as short wailing blasts to warn of an air raid. When
the raid was over, it blasted out a continuous wail as an all-clear. The
colliery must have had direct contact with the authorities when there was
going to be a raid. They had a colour system which reported the possibility
of a local raid. Amber showed the German bombers to be over the UK
travelling north. Purple represented them getting nearer this area and red,
that an air raid was imminent. The pit would shut down and the workers
were sent home. I can remember my dad coming home at about 7.00pm on
such occasions, even though he was on “afternoons” and didn’t finish until
10.00pm. He would say, “We’ve got the purple. They are coming this
way”.
Some arrangements had got to be made to ensure the safety of civilians,
particularly those living in cities in the event of an air raid. Here in
Kiveton communal brick shelters were built at various places around the
village. People had the opportunity to buy a steel shelter for individual
use if they wished at a fixed price. In Sheffield, my mum’s brothers and
sisters were all given these steel shelters to put in their garden for them
and their families. If you hadn’t a garden, you were given a large steel
reinforced table to put in your house. I have a friend in Sheffield, whose
family had one of these tables as they had no garden, living in a terraced
house in the East end of the city. She still remembers how cramped they
were. On the night of the Sunday blitz, her dad settled them down under
the table before he went on fire-watching duty at Thomas W. Ward. She
never saw her dad again. He was killed as bombs rained down on that
part of Sheffield.
A burning building in Sheffield after a recent air-raid.
For my part, my dad got together with our neighbour, Fred Sampson,
and they decided to buy one of the steel shelters to put up in the garden.
They were called Anderson shelters and consisted of straight and curved
corrugated steel sheets. They came with instructions, but it was a case of
“Do it yourself” once it arrived. The first job was to dig a hole big
enough to build it in. It was decided to put it on our garden and digging
began. At first, it was quite exciting digging this big hole which had to be
6 feet deep. We kids soon tired of helping though and it was left to the
dads to complete it. The steel sheets were put into the hole and bolted
together and our shelter was complete. We kids then enjoyed digging the
soil back on top of the shelter and my dad covered it with nasturtium
seeds. In the summer it was a blaze with the reds, yellows and oranges of
the flowers and it brought a bit of brightness in those very bad times.
However there wasn’t much comfort inside the shelter. It was cold and
damp. Railway sleepers were put down on the soil to make the floor more
secure and an attempt was made at one time to put up a couple of bunk
beds. Inside the shelter was so damp that the bedding on these bunks soon
developed mould, so this idea was scrapped. Fred Sampson, our
neighbour rigged up some kind of heating in a biscuit tin and secured a
type of lantern for light. It was good that there was no health and safety in
1940 as these devices certainly wouldn’t have passed the test. They did
however serve the purpose and made the nights we spent in there more
acceptable. My dad made a couple of bench seats to sit on and we took
cushions in with us when the sirens went. Cushions were my Grandad’s
responsibility, and my mum picked up the bag which had a survival kit of
food in it. My dad’s job was in charge of the case which had the
important papers in it – identity cards, ration books, birth and marriage
certificates, bank books, etc. We were all took responsibility for our own
gasmasks.
At this time, we were all issued with identity cards which we had to
carry with us and show if we were challenged. Ration books were also
introduced. They came in various colours according to age or need. There
were buff coloured ones for adults, blue ones for children under sixteen,
and green ones for babies. I think there must have been another colour for
old people over seventy as my Grandad seemed to get the extras that I got
on my ration book.
Rationing itself was a complicated business, and took quite a bit of
understanding. Items like butter, sugar, tea, bacon, meat etc. were a set
amount weekly and you could register your ration book with a shop – a
grocer, butcher etc. for a long-term supply. My mum registered our
grocery rations at the Co-op and our meat and bacon at Jack Clarkson’s
Butcher. This meant we didn’t have to take our ration books to these shops
every week. However, some tinned items like tomatoes, beans and fruit
were on a points system; everyone had so many points and they could
choose what to spend them on. Sweets were also on rations and later in the
war we had clothing coupons, which rationed the amount of clothes we
bought. Children could have extra coupons for clothes as they grew and
mum got some extra for me because my feet were growing so fast.
A train full of evacuees arriving at their destination
There were ways of supplementing the rations if you made the effort. A
lady living on Church Street, Wales, kept chickens. From time to time she
would sell some of her eggs. Mum used to send me to her house to see if
she had any to spare. Dad knew a man at Thorpe who kept pigs and went
shooting rabbits. A visit to Thorpe on our bikes by dad and me meant
perhaps a rabbit stew or a bit of ham. I don’t know whether it was legal or
not.
Milk came either in bottles or in a jug from the horse and milk float man.
The cream was always on the top of the milk and my mum would pour it
off into a small octagonal bottle with a screw top. My Grandad would sit
and shake this and eventually we had a small extra pat of butter. This was
my Grandad’s speciality and a help towards our butter ration.
Autumn 1939 was comparatively quiet in Kiveton. When the sirens
went it was usually a false alarm. Things were very different in France
and our soldiers were struggling against the man called Hitler and his
armies. Children were evacuated from the south coast and London to
Kiveton and we local children, watched them arrive on trains at Kiveton
Bridge Station. Many of the evacuees came from good homes and were
upset to leave their mums and dads. There was a minority who had left
homes that were not so good and the Kiveton billeting officers had
difficulty in finding homes for them. My mum took in a little girl the
same age as me. She was called Pearl, but it was obvious she was not
well. Pearl became a member of my family over the next two or three
weeks. Mum put up a single bed in my bedroom for her and sorted out
some of my clothes for Pearl to wear. She settled in with us and was well
cared for, but her health did not improve. Eventually, mum took her to
our doctor who carried out some tests. Poor Pearl had TB. She was taken
to a sanatorium nearer her home and we lost contact with her. We had to
have tests to make sure we hadn’t caught it too.
In May, 1940, anther evacuation was taking place in France. Our
soldiers had been driven back to Dunkirk where they waited on the
beaches for small ships to return them to England. Through spring and
summer 1940 everyone prepared for an invasion by the armies of this
man called Hitler. When war was declared in 1939 the church bells
stopped ringing but it was decided they would ring again when needed, to
warn of an invasion by German soldiers. Luckily for us, they never had to
be used for this purpose. The Battle of Britain followed and every day on
the radio we heard how many German aircraft had been shot down by our
brave fighter pilots.
Autumn 1940 was the beginning of the bombing of cities known as the
“Blitz”. London was attacked night after night. My cousin Bill, who lived
with us as a teenager after the death of his parents, had left Kiveton pit
and gone to London to join the Metropolitan police. He met his wife
Lillian, and they were married in 1939. Their first baby was born one
night in the London Blitz. Their home was damaged and they had
nowhere to live. Bill’s first thought was “I will send them to Kiveton as
they will be safe there”.
The first my parents knew of this was a telegram boy at our door. The
telegram read “Lillian and baby coming to stay. 3.30pm train.” Mum and
Mrs. Sampson next door went to Kiveton Bridge station to meet the
3.30pm from King’s Cross, but they were not on the train. Imagine this
young mother with a 2-day old baby who had survived the bombing that
night, now on a train to a place and people she did not know. All they had
was what she and the baby were wearing. Where were they? Bill had said
“Get off at Kiveton Park”, and that is what she did; not Kiveton Bridge.
The station master at Kiveton Park station saw this young mother and
baby after the train had left. He contacted Mr. Holmes at Kiveton Bridge
ticket office and Lillian and baby were put on the next train to Kiveton
Bridge. They were very lost and lonely figures, but were soon taken into
our family and cared for. The stories of the Blitz were horrendous, but
Lillian and her baby, who was to be called Mary, were now safe with us.
Lillian had brought her own gas mask but she had not yet got one for
Mary. Mum got in touch with those in charge of gas masks and they
brought one to our house for the baby. It was like a big bag with a visor
across the front. Mary was put inside and drawstrings at the bottom were
pulled and tied. Once she was inside, someone had to pump continuously
to keep her alive. The lady who brought it showed Lillian and my parents
how to work it so they could take it in turns if the need arose. When we
went in the shelter, I helped Lilian, with Mary’s mask.
Kiveton Park station today
Bill came to see them as often as he could but with the bombing every
night, police leave was very limited. After a while it was obvious that
Hitler was not going to break the spirit of the Londoners by bombing
them every night so he turned his attention to other cities- Birmingham,
Manchester, Liverpool, Hull and eventually Sheffield. We had
experienced air raids but nothing on the scale of the blitz, until Thursday
night 12th December 1940.
It was about 7.00 o’clock and I was having my piano lesson from Mrs
Chambers (Eric’s mum). Dad had gone to work as usual about 1.30pm
for his afternoon shift. He came home from the pit because they had got
the ‘red’ signal at work. The sirens went and dad walked Mrs Chambers
home to Springfield. By the time he got back we were all in the shelter
and bombs were falling on Sheffield. Lilian was going through the
London blitz all over again! By the time we came out of the shelter the
night sky was crimson with the fires that were burning in Sheffield.
Friday was a terrible day but we kids in Kiveton went to school as
normal. Mum was worried about her brothers and sisters who all lived in
Sheffield. Through Friday and Saturday there was no way of mum
finding out about them. The few buses that were coming through to
Kiveton had windows blown out and were affected by bomb damage. On
Sunday morning mum couldn’t stand not knowing about her family any
longer and she and dad set off to try to get to Sheffield leaving me with
my Grandad and Lilian and baby.
The day went by and they didn’t come home. It started to go dark and I
can still remember my fears when the sirens went. The bombers were
coming to Sheffield again! It was Sunday night December 15th 1940. I
was terrified.
Lilian was organising Grandad and baby to go into the shelter but I
wouldn’t go. I put on my coat and ran down Limetree Avenue to the bus
stop. The bombs had started to fall on Sheffield again and my mum and
dad hadn’t come home. While I was stood at the bus stop a lady came up
to me and asked what I was doing there. I told her my story and she said
she would wait with me for a while; I never found out who she was. Then
as the guns were firing and the bombs dropping on Sheffield we could hear
something coming down Wales Road. It was a bus and my mum and dad
were on it. I cried and cried. They had walked miles in Sheffield and had
nothing to eat all day but mum’s brothers and sisters were all safe. They
had spent the night in their shelters at Crookes. Two had lost their homes
and others had no windows or doors but they were alive. What followed
was another terrible night of blitz.
Bill came up from London for Christmas. He was very anxious because
of the Sheffield bombing and decided to take Lilian and their baby back
home to London with him. He had been allocated another police flat so
they could set up home together again.
Young children contemplating the debris of their bombed home
When the German bombers travelled over the area they dropped strips
of silver foil like today’s baking foil in an attempt to affect the radar. After
a raid we kids would go over the meadows the following day and collect
the foil as a souvenir. There was a trend at this time to collect souvenirs
then swap any that you had extra for other items. When Bill came up from
London at Christmas he brought me one or two pieces of shrapnel that had
damaged their London home. Some kids in the village had got hold of
parts of a parachute and I swapped a piece of London shrapnel, for a 6
inch piece of parachute chord.
At times when the bombing was bad, the sky around Sheffield was full
of barrage balloons- big airship like monsters filled with some kind of gas
in the hope that the bombers would get caught up in them. I don’t know
what kind of material they were made of, but at times, some of them were
damaged. Then little pieces of barrage balloon material also became
souvenirs and so the craze went on.
One night after quite a bad bombing raid our water supply was cut
off after a reservoir had been damaged. Water lorries and stand pipes
were set up for our drinking and cooking water, but you had to get
washing and toilet water from wherever you could. My dad set up a
washing tub to collect rainwater from the fall pipe. There was a cottage
just off Storth Lane, on Manor Road that had a well in the front garden.
We went there with a tub in a wheelbarrow to collect washing water.
There was always a queue as word quickly spread that water was
available there.
Between Kiveton, Todwick and South Anston a decoy village was set
up to confuse the German bombers and make them think they were
already over Sheffield. My mum and dad had a friend on Chestnut
Avenue who worked there. I think he must have been sworn to secrecy
because I never learned anymore about it. However with the help of the
internet I have now researched Kiveton Decoy site C10 B. It was situated
on the fields between Kiveton Lane, Todwick and South Anston. It was a
QL bombing decoy called Kiveton SK 507 838. It was constructed as part
of the “C series” of civil decoys for Sheffield to deflect enemy bombing
from the Rotherham marshalling yard. It displayed lighting to simulate a
railway marshalling yard. There were other sites at Norton, Eckington,
Ulley, Bramley and Thorpe. The code name for these sites was “starfish”.
The sites for Sheffield were commissioned in November 1940 and were
all in place by January 1941.
The Ulley decoy consisted of fires which were lit when a bombing raid
on Sheffield was imminent. It was hoped that the enemy bombers, seeing
the fires, would believe that this was Sheffield burning and they would
jettison their bombs over rural country.
With all this in mind, Kiveton was very lucky not to have been badly
bombed in the air raids of World War 11. There was a horseshoe of
decoys around us. Had the bombers been persuaded that the decoys were
Sheffield and dropped their bombs on these sites, it would have been a
very different story for the colliery and the people of Kiveton.
The former Kiveton Park Colliery Offices in more peaceful times.
The New Year 1941 started and the bombing of cities continued. The
German submarines were attacking our convoys bringing food to Great
Britain and rationing was very tight, but life went on. It came to the time
to sit the exam for the Grammar school. I was still only 10 years old, but
somehow was included with the children sitting that year. We couldn’t
believe it when I passed and that summer I left Wales Junior School
forever.
So September 1941 saw me travelling on the train every day to
Woodhouse Grammar School. The trains were packed with servicemen
who were being moved around the country and more often than not we
had to stand. I don’t think mum and dad were too keen on me going as it
meant me being nearer Sheffield every day. The school had purpose built
air raid shelters and in the event of an air raid we ran across the tennis
courts to our allocated shelter. The teachers, particularly the men, were of
an older generation as the younger ones had gone off to war. They had to
wear their academic gowns everyday and it was obvious that those
belonging to Mr. Kelso and Mr Montieth had seen many years of wear.
Pupils leaving school at the age of 18 years went straight into the forces
and we had special assemblies when the sad news came through to say
that one of our old boys had been killed in action.
We did have dinners at school and Mrs Cleverley, the cook, did her
best with the food that was available. However very often the dinners left
a lot to be desired and consisted mainly of potatoes that would fill young
children.
The school adopted a ship which had originally been a fishing trawler,
but had been adapted into a minesweeper. The sailors were a hardy lot,
but needed lots of warm clothes as they swept the North Atlantic
looking for German mines which were sinking our shipping. We were
encouraged to take home batches of wool that had been treated with oil
for our mothers to knit socks, mittens, scarves and balaclavas. The wool
didn’t smell very nice and was difficult to knit, but my mum lost count
of the number of items she knitted for these brave sailors.
Various societies were set up at school to help the war effort. The Air
Training Corps was started to help train the lads who would eventually go
into the Air Force. There were groups of girls who went into the Sheffield
hospitals on Saturday mornings to help with tasks like making beds,
ironing bandages, making tea, etc. I was on the rota for the Royal
Hospital on West Street, while some girls went to the Royal Infirmary
and the City General. There were no evening groups in the winter
because of the blackout and events like the Christmas parties were
cancelled for the duration of the war.
We did miss school for several days at one time when the German
bombers dropped land mines on the pit top area. The trains that took us
to school couldn’t run as these mines didn’t explode and bomb disposal
men had to come to deal with them.
The morning after the blitz
As time went by the air raids became less frequent and not as heavy as
in the nights of the blitz. School for us went on as usual, although in
Sheffield my cousins had something called “Home Service”. They were
taught in small groups at different peoples’ houses. I think this was
because some of the schools had taken direct hits during the bombing and
were too badly damaged to be used.
My mum and dad listened to the news on the radio all the time (there
were no televisions then), but we didn’t always get the truth. Sometimes
the Government suppressed the horrid details of the blitz in various cities
and at times even made light of the bombing. This was called propaganda
and was an attempt to convince the Germans that they were not
succeeding in breaking the spirit of the British people. A man from
London called William Joyce had turned traitor on his country of birth;
he had left Britain for Germany at the start of the war and became known
on the radio as Lord Haw Haw. He broadcasted regularly on a program
from Germany always telling us how the Germans were winning the war.
My cousin Bill who was in the London Metropolitan Police, told us how
he had arrested William Joyce in London on several occasions in the run
up to the war. This man was known for standing on his soapbox in
various London parks trying to convert the people to his way of thinking
– “that the Germans were a superior race and we should all be like them”.
The war years dragged on and at times it seemed to us that the
situation was stalemate. We did not know what was going on behind
the scenes with preparation for an invasion of Europe by British forces.
Then at school one day, my teacher sent me with a note to the
Headmaster, Mr Evans. The corridor where he had his office was
‘hallowed ground’. Pupils were only allowed there if they had been
sent by a member of staff. I knocked on his door and he shouted “come
in”. As I went to open the door, his secretary, who also occupied an
office on the corridor, burst past me, and entered Mr Evans’ room in
front of me. “Our forces have landed in Normandy. The second front
has started” she screamed. I dropped the note on Mr Evans’ desk and
left them excitedly talking about the news, then hurried back to tell my
teacher. She told the class about what had happened and talked to us
about what a massive operation it would be. Later that day we had an
assembly to inform the pupils about the news and to say prayers for
our brave soldiers, sailors and airmen.
Now the invasion of Europe had started our forces needed more and
more ammunition, guns, shells and equipment. Sheffield steel works
were working at full capacity to help the war effort and more and more
women found themselves working in factories. The main contribution
to the war from Kiveton was coal from the pit to fuel the furnaces in
the steel works. However three times a day, seven days a week, a
group of young women could be seen opposite Kiveton cinema waiting
for a bus. There was not a lot of information about where they were
going, but they were obviously doing work of national importance
somewhere. They all had their hair tied up in turbans and wore heavy
footwear. Unknown to many in the village, they were going to a place
called Ranskill near Retford. At Ranskill there was a massive
munitions factory operated mainly by women. It was very hard and
dangerous work. The factory site covered over 100 acres, mostly
underground and about 4000 people were employed there. They were
making cordite, used for explosives in bombs and shells. Not only were
these women at risk at any time from a massive explosion, but the
cordite affected their health. After six months working there some of
the women were diagnosed with cordite poisoning. Their skins turned
yellow and they had to leave Ranskill munitions factory forever. Some
of these women were from Kiveton Park and Wales and they paid a
large personal price for their contribution to the war effort.
After D.Day, war in Europe waged on. Everyday on the radio we had
news about various battles. Allied forces had taken a city here and a
strategical bridge there. British cities had a respite from the blitz and
Sheffield began to adopt an air of normality again.
However that man called Hitler was not finished. He had two aces up
his sleeve which could have proved a very different end to the war.
They were the V1 flying bomb – “doodlebug” and the V2 unmanned
rocket which could be fired from the North French coast towards
England - he had a massive stock pile of these weapons. The firing
platforms were mobile so it was impossible to destroy them all by
British bombers. The range of the V1 was 160 miles and they flew at
400 mph. No one knew where they would land but they were aimed
towards London and fell out of the sky as soon as the engine stopped.
Some went off course and there were reports of them reaching more
northern areas and causing damage and casualties there.
At this time my cousin Bill from London had been called up and was
with the forces fighting the Japanese in Burma. This left Lilian and
Mary on their own in London. Lilian wrote to us saying how she feared
these flying bombs because no one knew where they would land and
their home was in great danger for a second time. My mum wrote back
to say they were welcome to come and stay with us again as they had
done in the 1940 blitz.
The problem was that Mary was growing up now and had started
school in London. Lilian didn’t want to take her away from all her
friends so she decided to stay for the time being. If the doodlebug
attacks got any worse they would come back to Kiveton anyway and
Mary would have to go to school here.
The V2 rocket was an even bigger problem. It had a much longer
range and could be fired at targets further north. It carried a larger
bomb load of high explosives and there was no warning of where it
would land. It could be fired day or night so we were even more afraid
of these rocket attacks than the nights of the blitz.
The allied forces in France continued to push Hitler’s armies back
across Europe. The mood here was very positive as we all looked
forward to the end of the war. However towards the end of 1944 our
mood changed as the news on the radio told of a German offensive.
Hitler’s armies were attacking and the Battle of the Bulge followed.
The news on the radio was black again as our forces lost much, hard
fought for, ground. Would there be another Dunkirk? It was not to be!
By the middle of January 1945 our forces had repulsed this attack and
were back to the original lines. We were upbeat again and beginning to
see a light at the end of a five year tunnel, with every day taking us
nearer to victory.
Through March and April we were expecting the end to come almost
any day as our forces pushed on relentlessly through Europe. Then at
the beginning of May it was obvious it would only be a matter of days
before Victory. On May 8th it was all over. Everything signed and
sealed unconditionally.
I think the first announcement was a bit of an anti-climax as we had
expected it for so long. At school we were given two days holiday.
Then it all became reality. Blackouts were taken down and burnt, gas
masks destroyed, street parties arranged, crowds gathered in the streets
and there was singing and dancing. On the estate where I lived parties
were arranged with mums scraping together, what they could find, to
make cakes and party food. Trestle tables were put up in the middle of
the road (no traffic in those days or need to close the road) and we
children enjoyed a wonderful tea. In the evening there was a dance on
Chestnut Avenue, outside the house of Mr and Mrs Tom Burke. The
houses round about put on all the possible lights and there was music
for dancing until 1.00a.m.
Kiveton Park today, through the cast iron sculpture of Duke, the pit
pony at Kiveton Community Woodland on the reclaimed site of the old
Kiveton Park Colliery
My family’s joy of victory in Europe was a little tempered because
our Bill was still out in Burma fighting the Japanese and VJ day did
not come until August. However the relief felt by everyone was almost
tangible.
No more air raids, no more blackouts, no more gas masks, no more
families getting the news that their loved ones had been killed in
Europe, shelters to be dug up and disposed of and possibly soon more
food with the end of rationing.
Hopefully peace for ever!
Betty Quinton
Betty was born into the Blackwell mining family on 12th February 1931
and grew up in Kiveton Park at a time when children could play and roam
at will. She has lived in the village all her life, attending Wales Primary
School until she was 10 years old and then Woodhouse Grammar School.
She then worked as an Office Manager in a cutlery firm in Sheffield
before getting married. Between 1976 and 1993, when her daughters were
growing up she worked as a librarian at Wales High School until she
retired.
She has been an active founder member of Kiveton Park and Wales
History Society, since its inception in 2004 and enjoys all the research and
organisation that is involved.
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