‘Some war!’ said Billy to Mam. ‘Here we are, August the twenty-second, and nowt’s happened. 5
Dad overheard and, looking up from his paper, addressed the wireless set:
‘Nowt’s happened! Hitler’s taken over all bloody Europe, we’ve had Dunkirk, we’ve had the Battle of Britain and Jerry’s in Paris. And he says nowt’s happened!’
‘You know what I mean,’ said Billy. ‘All those things are taking place somewhere else. Here in Manchester there’s been nowt exciting.’
‘No, and we don’t want nowt exciting, thank you very much,’ said Mam. ‘Don’t tempt providence, our Billy.’
‘Yeah, but at school they’re making jokes, calling it the Bore War and saying Hitler’s Blitzkrieg should be called his Sitzkrieg. Anyway, all the kids who were evacuated in ’thirty-nine are coming back home.’
‘We’ve had our share of excitement in this house,’ said Dad. ‘Take last December. Look at the way our Jim in the Renown chased across the Atlantic to Rio after the Graf Spee. He made it scuttle itself in Montevideo, didn’t he? And he helped to sink the French fleet last month. So what more d’you want?’
‘I just feel sometimes that the war’s happening to other people all the time, that’s all.’
‘Let’s hope it stays that way,’ said Mam.
Billy had spoken too soon, for on Wednesday 4 September, the Luftwaffe carried out night raids on twenty- one British towns, including Manchester. The RAF replied by bombing Berlin, causing fires that could be seen fifty miles away.
‘We’d better get ourselves organised,’ said Mam, as she sat with Billy in the dark cubby-hole in the coal cellar. ‘We’ll catch our death o’ cold if we have to come down here every night.’
That first raid lasted only three hours and little damage was done in the centre of the town, but there was the promise of more to come. The next day, as Billy walked back from Ormeroyd’s corner shop with Dad’s Player’s Weights and his Evening Chronicle , he read the front page headlines and reports:
HITLER PROMISES TO BREAK US!
In a speech yesterday to the German nation. Hitler said: ‘The British will know that we are now giving our answer to the impudent raids of the RAF. If they attack our cities, we will erase theirs. We will call a halt to these night pirates. The hour will come when one of us two will break up, and it won’t be Nazi Germany. If the British throw two or three thousand pounds of bombs, we will unload 150, 180, yes, 200 thousand . . .’ Apparently he intended to continue the progression of figures, but the shouts of the crowd halted him.
‘It looks as if our Billy’s going to get his excitement after all,’ said Dad when he read the headlines.
Blackout curtains were put up to the front cellar windows and a new mantle was fitted to the gas bracket down there. Mattresses were placed on the floor and the Hopkins family prepared to dig in. In fact, provision for only three was needed, as Flo was on permanent night work with the Dunlop Rubber Company, whilst Les and Sam were out every night on duty as ARP messengers.
Next door, the Sykes family had made similar preparations and were ready for the Blitzkrieg which Adolf had threatened. The two families were able to communicate with each other through the adjoining cellar walls. Billy had made a special ‘knocking’ hammer which was beautifully decorated and was most effective in calling their neighbours’ attention.
‘Are you there, Jessie?’
‘Aye, we’re here again, Kate.’
‘Are y’all right, Jessie?’
‘Not so bad, but being in this cellar’s not doing me asthma no good.’
‘Who’s with you then?’
‘There’s just me and our Henery. Harry won’t get out o’ bed. He says if he’s gonna die, he’d rather go in his bed than in the coal cellar.’
‘Same with Tommy. He’s still in bed too. He says, “What has to be will be and if your name’s on the bomb it’ll hit you no matter where y’are.” ’
‘By gum, that’s true. So why are we here in the cellar, Mrs Hopkins?’
‘Well, you won’t know your name’s on it till it hits you, will you?’ said Mam.
This philosophical poser seemed to stump Mrs Sykes, for she went quiet after that.
Billy often wondered himself about this notion of names on bombs. He could imagine some Luftwaffe
corporal over there in Germany carefully chalking his name and address on the side of a large hundred-pound bomb: ‘With love to Billy Hopkins, 17 Honeypot Street, Cheetham. Special Delivery. By Express Air Mail.’
‘It’s a frightening thought, Mam,’ he said, ‘to think that up there, floating above us in the clouds, there are some men trying to kill us.’
The raids began to increase in frequency and duration. Regularly at six o’clock, the siren sounded.
‘There it goes. Moaning Minnie! You can almost set your clock by it,’ said Mam. ‘Come on, our Billy. Down we go. Bring your homework with you. You’ll just have to do it down there.’
The raids usually lasted until dawn. Early on, Billy would get on with his Latin and geometry whilst the heavy bombers droned overhead. Around ten o’clock, after a cup of cocoa made during a lull, it was time for shut-eye on the mattress.
One night all was quiet and calm, a heaven-sent respite from the waves of bombers passing above. Suddenly they were awakened by the sound of heavy gunfire, which was so loud it seemed to be in the cellar with them.
‘God help us!’ cried Mam as she awoke with a start. ‘That’s near!’
Then they traced the source of the gunfire. It was their black cat, Snowy, walking gingerly across the upturned tin bath!
On Friday 29 November, the sirens burst out as usual at six o’clock, and Billy and his Mam took up their places in the front cellar. There was something different about this raid, though, for the deafening sound of gunfire - of the real kind - began almost immediately and the dull explosion of faraway bombs was heard within the first five minutes.
‘It says on the wireless that the Jerries are giving London a miss tonight and heading up north,’ Dad called down to them. ‘Manchester’s gonna get it tonight. I think I’d better join you two down there.’
‘What about all that stuff about your name being on the bomb?’ asked Mam.
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘But there’s no sense in me writing it meself, is there?’
The raid lasted twelve hours. All night they listened to the thud of bombs dropping somewhere to the north of the city.
‘Some poor buggers have been getting it up there,’ said Dad.
‘I wonder how our Polly is,’ said Mam. ‘She lives up that way, doesn’t she?’
‘I’m supposed to be staying with ’em this weekend,’ said Billy. ‘I’m going up there after breakfast, so I can see how they are.’
He took the 62 bus up Cheetham Hill to Heaton Park and was unprepared for the sight which met him. As he stepped off the bus, he saw devastation everywhere. A great area of the new housing estate where Pauline, Steve and the two children lived had been flattened and left a smoking ruin. Billy ran to Pauline’s lovely new house to find Steve nailing boards to windows and doors.
‘Steve, Steve,’ he cried. ‘What’s happened? Where’s Polly and the kids? Are they all right?’
‘They’re all OK, but we’ve had one hell of a night, Billy. Jerry has well and truly plastered this area. God knows what he was after. Pauline’s in the garden round the back trying to put a few things together.’
In the back garden, Billy found Polly and the two boys packing up a few suitcases of the belongings they had managed to get out of the house. She was weeping quietly.
‘Oh, Billy,’ she sobbed. ‘We’ve lost everything, and we’re all lucky to be alive.’
‘Tell me what happened, Polly, for God’s sake.’
‘During the night the bombers dropped those aerial landmines - the ones that come down by parachute. Twenty-five people have been killed and I don’t know how many injured.’
‘Where were you during all this?’
‘We were in our Anderson shelter for almost twelve hours. I suffered a dislocated jaw because of the blast but Steve seemed to know what to do.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘But at least you’re all OK.’
‘We’re not badly injured like a lot of other people. But we’ve lost our new home. It’s unsafe to live there now as the foundations have been rocked by the explosions.’
‘What’ll you do now? You can always come to us in Honeypot Street.’
‘No, we’ll go to one of the emergency centres set up by the WVS, and then we’ll be found a new home.’
‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘No, nothing. You’d best get back and tell Mam and Dad what’s happened here. We’ll come down to see them later today.’
As Billy turned away to go back to his bus, young Oliver said:
‘Unca Billy. Make us laugh!’
But he couldn’t, because of the tears in his eyes.
The air raids on Manchester did not let up. If anything they intensified, and a second evacuation of children from the big cities was being organised. This time Billy was included.
‘You’ll have a smashing time,’ said Mam, trying to be cheerful. ‘You’ll be going to Blackpool of all places. You’ve
alius been lucky; that comes of being a Sunday child.’
Towards the end of the Christmas term, Brother Maurice came round during the music lesson as the boys were singing ‘Come Lasses and Lads’ and, cupping his hand to his ear, listened to each boy individually.
‘He suspects something,’ said Billy to Robin Gabrielson.
At the end of the lesson the brother said:
‘I should like to see the following boys before they go: Gabrielson, Hardy, Hopkins, Nodder, Smalley and Wilde.’
‘Trouble again,’ said Titch to no one in particular.
Billy could almost feel the pain again on his backside.
‘Right, boys,’ said Maurice. ‘I’ve selected you to form a little choir for the school concert on the last day of term, Friday the thirteenth of December. It’s bound to be a very lucky day.’
‘Why is that, sir?’ asked Billy*
‘Because thirteen is my lucky number,’ he said. ‘We shall put in twenty minutes’ practice every lunch-hour.’
‘I wonder when we’ll get time for dinner,’ said Nobby to Billy.
‘If you want to learn to sing and speak English, you’ll have to do without dinner,’ replied Billy.
For Billy, the school concert was a most unusual affair because not only Mam but also Dad had agreed to attend - his very first visit to the school. In the first half, the school orchestra, conducted by Brother Maurice, played, in its inimitable off-key style, various pieces of light classical music. At the interval Billy went back-stage to check a few details of their appearance in the second half. When he returned to the auditorium, he found Mam and Dad already engaged in conversation with Tony Wilde’s parents.
‘The fall of France was a disaster,’ said Mr Wilde.
‘Just terrible,’ said Dad. ‘And did you see the way Jerry went up Champs Elsie. Must’ve been a terrible sight for the French.’
‘It’s to be hoped the German SS brigades never get over here,’ said Mr Wilde.
‘You’ve never said a truer word,’ said Dad. ‘Them Gas Peter fellas would love to get their hands on Churchill.’
‘Sorry, not with you,’ said Tony’s dad.
‘Y’know, the SS fellas.’
‘Oh, you mean the Gestapo. But you’re too right there, Mr Hopkins. The SS seem to be without normal feelings - a bit like what we hear about the Japanese.’
‘The Japs have already signed an agreement with Hitler. Mark my words, they’ll be worse than the Jerries if they ever go to war against us. Y’know they worship their Emperor, Hi-de-hi, as God.’
‘Hi-de-hi?’
‘Y’know, that Mickey Doo fella.’
‘Oh, you mean the Mikado?’ said Mr Wilde.
‘That’s right. That’s what I said.’
Mam, meanwhile, was chatting with Mrs Wilde.
‘We’ve been having one or two air raids round our way,’ Mam said.
‘Oh, aye,’ said Mrs Wilde.
‘First they dropped them Fairy lights - the ones that make it all bright as day.’
‘Oh, aye.’
‘Then they dropped them there incondescet bombs to start fires.’
‘Oh, aye.’
‘And me daughter what lives in Heaton Park has just been bombed out. It was a good job she and her family was in one of them Hans Andersen shelters.’
‘Oh, aye.’
Billy interrupted Mam’s one-way conversation.
‘How are you enjoying the concert so far. Mam? What did you think of the orchestra?’
‘I enjoyed it - listening to ’em practising and tuning up their instruments. And when they get the tune right, I think they’ll be very good.’
The second half of the concert was a tear-jerker. Five of the boys, looking like cherubs in altar boys’ gear, hummed softly whilst the chief cherub, Robin Gabrielson, gave a heart-rending solo performance of Schubert’s ‘Who is Sylvia?’. But the item which had the mothers in tears and the fathers swallowing hard was the boys’ pianissimo performance of Ivor Novello’s ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’ whilst a handsome sixth-former, dressed in full military uniform, rifle on shoulder, recited the lines from Richard II:
This royal throne of kings , this sceptred isle ,
This earth of majesty , this seat of Mars ,
This other Eden, demi-paradise ,
This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war ,
This happy breed of men , this little world ,
This precious stone set in the silver sea ,
Which serves it in the office of a wall ,
Or as a moat defensive to a house ,
Against the envy of less happier lands.
This blessed plot , this earthy this realm , this England.
At the conclusion, Brother Dorian took the centre of the stage to deliver the final speech.
‘My dear parents, this is a sad day for us all. The might
of Goering’s Luftwaffe is now being turned on us civilians. Night after night, hour after hour, raider after raider dumps bomb after bomb upon us and our homes. We in Manchester have suffered, but I tell you now, we have not suffered one half as much as those poor citizens of Coventry who were bombed mercilessly on the night of the fourteenth of November. We are all in the front line now. I read in my newspaper today - and it may be of some comfort to you to know it - that it takes one ton of bomb to kill three-quarters of a person. At that rate, it will take Hitler many years to wipe out Manchester.
‘But we must stand rock-like together, shoulder to shoulder, and when the blast of war blows in our ears, then we must imitate the action of the tiger, and go forward together as one man, a smile on our lips and our heads held high.
‘And soon you must part from your children. They are our future, our seed-corn. Without them there is no tomorrow, and they must be protected from the evils of that guttersnipe, Shikelgruber. But rest assured about this: I shall try to love them all as if they were my own. Let us therefore look to the distant horizon, raise our eyes to the golden light on the hillside, and filled with confidence and courage, our resolve unshaken, we shall not fail.’
This moving speech was met by thunderous applause from the assembled parents.
‘Ooh, he does sound like Winston Churchill,’ said Mam on the way home.
‘Where d’you think he got the bloody speech from?’ observed Dad shrewdly. ‘And how, I should like to know, are we supposed to stand rock-like together and at the same time go forward like bloody tigers with smiles on our bloody faces?’
★ ★ ★
The decision to send Billy to Blackpool was reinforced just before Christmas. Manchester suffered its worst blitz on the nights of 23 and 24 December when the centre of the city was almost blasted out of existence.
The sirens sounded at dusk on Christmas Eve right on time.
‘Time, gentlemen, please,’ said Mam. ‘Here we go again.’
‘You’re just like the landlord o’ the Queen’s Arms,’ said Dad. ‘And you keep a good cellar.’
As soon as they had descended to the cellar, Billy knocked on the cellar wall with his home-made mallet.
‘Are y’all right, Jessie?’ called Mam.
‘We’re not so bad,’ called back Mrs Sykes. ‘We’re all down here tonight. What a bloody way to spend Christmas, eh? I think we’re for it again, Kate.’
Shortly after she had spoken, the fiercest anti-aircraft barrage they had ever heard began, as chains of shells burst high in the sky, creating a curtain of steel.
‘Hey, Billy,’ shouted Henry, ‘there’ll be tons of shrapnel for us tomorrow from that lot.’
They heard off in the distance the cracking explosions of bombs followed by a succession of staccato reports like machine-gun fire. From dusk to dawn there was hardly a period of more than two minutes when bombs were not falling on the city.
‘The town’s getting it tonight,’ shouted Mrs Sykes. ‘Look out your cellar window, Kate. Thompson Street goods yard’s gone.’
They turned off all the gaslights and opened the window, and there across the railway sidings, silhouetted against the skyline, was their beloved city of Manchester - a raging inferno.
‘The whole bloody world’s on fire,’ said Dad.
‘It’s like that scene in Gone with the Wind where the whole town is in flames and Scarlett O’Hara rides up in a carriage,’ said Mam.
‘If we had a fiddle, we could play it like Nero did when Rome was burning,’ added Billy, showing off his classical knowledge.
‘I’m just glad you’re getting out of this next week,’ said Mam. ‘You’ll be a lot safer in Blackpool.’
‘Hey, Kate, it’s Christmas Eve,’ called Mrs Sykes. ‘How’s about a bit o’ carol-singing?’
‘Right, you’re on,’ Mam called back. ‘What d’you suggest, our Billy?’
‘How about a nice German carol - “Silent Night”?’
At dawn, the all-clear sounded, and Billy and Henry spent that Christmas morning collecting shrapnel, which they found in great abundance scattered in the cobbles of Honeypot Street.
Despite the pounding their city had received, the Hopkins family enjoyed a magnificent dinner on Christmas Day, thanks to Mam’s culinary skills on the living- room range, and Dad’s special connections in Smithfield Market. At three o’clock they gathered round the wireless set to listen to the King’s broadcast to the Empire from Buckingham Palace. When he had finished, Dad said:
‘After that rousing speech, what about cheering ourselves up and giving ourselves a good laugh. Let’s have a listen to Lord Hee-Haw.’
Carefully, he fine-tuned the wireless set to 31 metres.
‘Jairmany calling. Jairmany calling,’ drawled a nasal voice. ‘This is Reichsender Hamburg, Station Bremen On the thirty-one-metre band.
‘Merry Christmas to all you British citizens, especially those of you living in the big cities. We do hope you
enjoyed our little Christmas gift to you. No doubt you have finished your Christmas dinner of scraggy chicken and the few paltry rations your government allows you. Are you aware, people of Britain, that your well-fed Winston is at this very moment puffing away at a good Corona and sipping his Napoleon brandy after a lavish banquet with your stuttering King at Buckingham Palace? Hard luck on you working cheps, what?
‘During the week, your Air Ministry announced that many German bombs were dropped at random. Honest injun, we do offer our special condolences to the denizens of that unfortunate city. Sorry we had to pick on your town, cheps, but there really is nothing left worth bombing in Coventry. And all you people of Manchester must be very busy sweeping up the mess our gallant Jairman airmen have left behind. By the way, do you know your Town Hall clock has stopped? We know that because we are the ones who stopped it. Sorry about that, old man. However, we here in the Jairman Reich do hope your Christmas goes with a bang. But in the words of your coloured singer, Mr Albert Yolsen, “You haven’t seen anything yet”. We conclude this transmission by wishing you all a Heppy New Year - even if it’s a short one.’
‘I do feel sorry for all them poor people what live in Random,’ said Mam.
‘That bugger Hee-Haw should be hanged,’ said Dad.
So 1940 came to its close.
‘Well, our Billy, I hope you’ve had all the excitement you was wanting. Let’s hope 1941 is a quieter year for us all,’ said Mam.
‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Dad.
If only they’d known.