Night had descended and it was pitch-black by the time the first siren whined its warning into the street. For some reason, Elsie thought it sounded more urgent than usual. Fay wasn’t back yet so she ignored the kitchen table, and gathering Linda ran directly to the shelter at the Mission. It was as though everyone felt the same way, for the street was packed with people making their way to the Mission basement. She could already hear the steady drone of the distant bombers and knew she had done the right thing. She hoped Fay would insist the family in Back Gas Street ran for shelter and that she was safely with them too.
‘Where’s Annie Walker?’ Ena Sharples demanded. She was wearing her warden’s hat with a large W painted on the front and was checking names off a list.
‘She wouldn’t leave the Rovers while her Jack’s away,’ Sally Todd answered. ‘She’s taken Billy with her and gone down to the Rovers’ cellar.’
‘Right then. Everyone I expect to be here is accounted for,’ Mrs Sharples said with satisfaction.
There were several wardens from the surrounding neighbourhood all directing people to the Mission and it seemed like they were just in time. For the drone of engines that filled the air was getting nearer, and people were rushing to get down the stairs.
Elsie was trying to decide whether it was safe to go into the shelter as more people than ever seemed to be packing in the doors. She stood for a moment, hypnotized by the sky that was ablaze with searchlights and the leaping flames from fires ignited by distant bombs. But then she realized as the throbbing engines grew louder that the bombing was getting closer too and she stood uncertainly, hanging on to Linda, trapped by the milling crowd that was mobbing the entrance.
When she heard someone scream for Mrs Sharples’ help, she turned and watched in horror as Marjorie Barlow, who’d been desperately pleading with her sister-in-law Ida to leave her house for the safety of the shelter came into view, holding what looked like a parcel, with Ida right behind her. Both women were keeping close to the wall and moving as fast as they could in the direction of the Mission. Ida seemed to be shouting something, but her words were drowned out as the planes were almost overhead now. Realizing she had no time to get down the stairs to the basement, Elsie clutched Linda to her as tightly as she could and lay down on the floor, trying to protect her head while shielding the baby’s body with her own.
Suddenly the street shook, there was blinding flash of light followed by a roar and a deafening noise echoed all around. Then there was the thunderous sound of bricks crashing to the ground and bouncing on the cobbles. In the momentary silence that followed, Elsie lifted her head gingerly but regretted it immediately as there was another crash and a boom and the whole of the factory wall disappeared, along with those trying to reach the safety of the Mission. She couldn’t believe what she had seen in that brief moment. It was as if the street itself had been lifted, shaken about and then fallen back in different order.
Those who had witnessed the dreadful scene gave up all attempts to enter the shelter, risking their lives to run to where the wall had collapsed. As word spread, the shelter emptied and others joined them, scrabbling at the bricks with their bare hands to free whoever had been caught underneath. A combination of sirens, bells and shouting filled the streets, mingling with the screams of those who had been injured. Thankfully, the noise of the bombs was getting ever more distant.
To Elsie’s relief, Linda seemed unharmed. Apart from having torn her coat when she flattened herself to the floor, Elsie too was untouched. Not knowing what else to do, she ran to the main road and despite the risk of being knocked down in the darkness, she attempted to flag down an ambulance on its way into town.
‘We need your help here. Please,’ she begged when the ambulance pulled up a few feet away from her. ‘People have been badly hurt in the air raid on Coronation Street. I think they may need emergency treatment.’ To her huge relief, the crew turned their ambulance round and joined in the hunt for Ida and whoever else had been with her. It was several hours later that they found her, injured but alive. Kenneth too was safe, thanks to the quick thinking of his Aunt Marjorie, who had been with them. But she had not been so lucky. Marjorie Barlow had protected him at the cost of her own life.
Fires burned in Weatherfield well into the early hours and continued to burn in the city too. Many of the city’s firefighters had been sent to help out in Liverpool earlier, and had not yet returned. Those who remained fought valiantly, putting out fires even while bombs were still falling during a bombardment that lasted more than twelve hours.
In the morning, the residents surveyed the damage. Not everything was intact but Coronation Street had survived. The corner shop had been hit and most of the stock ruined by the shattering glass if not by the blast of the bomb itself. The main gas pipe to the street had been cut off, the water pipe had been fractured by the force of the explosion and they were informed that electricity would have to be rationed. When Annie Walker emerged from the cellar, she found the shelves had been looted by rescuers who must have been desperate for refreshment.
Amazingly the only fatality on the street was poor Marjorie. Ida was released from hospital after a night’s stay to make room for more urgent cases that were coming in from all over the city. The city centre was in ruins and there had been many severe casualties during the night. When she went down to the hospital, Elsie found Ida looking so bewildered that she offered her a bed at number 11, and later that morning she took Ida home to look after her. It helped to keep her mind off her sister.
Fay hadn’t come home the previous night and when she hadn’t appeared by morning Elsie didn’t know what to think or do. She wanted to go out looking for her but she didn’t know where to go. News had travelled fast about the devastation of the city centre, but so many people were killed or missing and there was no news yet about a single young girl lost somewhere between Coronation Street and Back Gas Street.
The next night the raids began again at about the same time and went on throughout the night as the Germans tried to dislocate networks and transport links and to terrorize the people. But this time there were no planes directly over Weatherfield. When the alarm sounded, Elsie was content for them to hide under the table once more where they felt safe enough listening to the bombs blasting in the distance.
If the Germans hoped to destroy the morale of Manchester, they had miscalculated. The blanket bombing had had the opposite effect. For while many buildings had been destroyed in the city centre, the heart of the people and their spirit of cooperation had not been touched. Everyone, young and old, pulled together, helping to drag the injured from the burning and flattened buildings. The Women’s Voluntary Service arrived with their trucks on street corners distributing spare clothing and much-needed strong tea. If Hitler thought the people of Manchester — or anywhere else in the country — were going to crumble, then he clearly had another thing coming.
On Christmas Day Weatherfield enjoyed a rest from all the air raids and it seemed like the blitz on Manchester was over, for the time being at least. No one was in a mood to celebrate, but a small crowd gathered at the Rovers, and people tried to pool their meagre resources to help them get through what should have been a festive day.
When Elsie heard a knock at the front door, she ran to open it, thinking it was Fay at last. Instead, a wild-looking man she didn’t recognize stood on her doorstep. He was wearing a dishevelled uniform and had several days’ growth of beard.
‘Elsie?’ a local-sounding voice said. ‘I hear my Ida’s with you.’
Elsie gasped. ‘Frank Barlow? Is it really you? You’re a sight for sore eyes!’ And she pulled back the door to let him through.
Ida, despite her bad leg, came rushing out as quickly as she could. ‘Frank! I thought you were dead. And I was convinced I was a goner too.’ Ida sobbed and told him about his sister Marjorie and how she had saved Kenneth’s life.
Elsie left them together while she went up to the Rovers, hoping she might hear some news of Fay. But she was greeted with the kind of information she didn’t want to hear.
‘Don’t you come from Back Gas Street way?’ someone asked her as soon as she set foot inside the door.
‘What of it?’ She was used to defending her home from the snooty types who liked to look down on anyone who came from the slums.
‘Rumour has it they didn’t fare so well the other night.’ Ena Sharples always liked to be in first. ‘I was going to nip over and tell you, if you hadn’t come in.’
Elsie gave a shiver and a sudden hush fell in the room.
‘How do you mean, “not fared well”?’ Elsie tried to keep her voice steady.
Someone pushed a chair towards her. ‘Here, you best sit down.’
Vi put a glass of gin in her hand, but Elsie ignored it. She was looking straight at Mrs Sharples, who as usual didn’t mince her words: ‘They bore the brunt of one of the explosions. A shelter took a direct hit. Incendiary bombs started fires all over the place. They spread quickly because those flimsy houses in the terraces were all so close together. And then they couldn’t get to the pumps.’
She looked as though she would go on, but Elsie had heard enough. As if suddenly realizing what Vi had put in her hand, she downed the gin in one gulp and ran out of the pub.
She went the way she always went, past the newsagent’s, which was still standing though with empty, glassless windows. But when she got to the Field she had to stop. Suddenly she didn’t recognize anything and lost all sense of where she was. Where there had once been streets and houses, all she could see were piles of rubble and the shattered remains of what had once been people’s homes. Several fires were still burning, she could feel the heat. Even now there was frenzied movement and activity as emergency workers and volunteers continued to pick through the debris, looking for the injured and the dead. Here and there she saw a chair leg, a kitchen drawer with a melted tangle of knives and forks. She nearly stumbled over a window frame, and skirted round a mattress that was still smouldering. Everything was covered in a film of masonry dust as fine as powder.
‘Here, come and look at this,’ a fireman called to his mate. Elsie went over to where he was standing so she could see too. There were dozens of tins of what had once been spam. Most of them had exploded, but a pile of jars of fish paste had somehow remained intact.
‘Bloody hoarders,’ the second man said, and went back to his digging.
As she went on, Elsie saw a papered wall still standing, complete with mantelpiece and photo frame. A door was attached to the wall and was swinging on its hinges, though the rest of the house had disappeared. The fireman yelled, ‘Be careful, it’s not safe!’ and she gave it a wide berth. Small children, unaware of the hidden heartbreak and dangers, were scurrying around looking for souvenirs.
‘You don’t want to be hanging about here,’ the fireman called to her, ‘it’s far too dangerous. You never know what might be lurking.’
‘How else will I find my family?’ Elsie shouted back.
The fireman came up to her, his face lined and weary. ‘This your house then?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. I can’t rightly tell. I can’t see owt familiar, at any rate.’
He took his helmet off and scratched his head. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t think anyone could have survived this lot. And the same goes for that shelter there, an’ all.’
Elsie nodded. She was so numb her mouth couldn’t form words to answer him. As tears trickled silently down her cheeks, she continued to make her way through the debris, hoping to find something or someone she recognized. Her hopes rose when she spotted Mrs James, their old neighbour, picking up bricks and putting them down again.
‘Oh, Elsie love. Whatever have you come home to?’ And she clasped Elsie tightly, tears pouring from her eyes.
Elsie clung to her for some time. ‘What’s happened to them all? Where is everyone?’ she sobbed.
‘I can’t say for sure,’ Mrs James said. ‘The whole street was hit right bad. They never had a chance. Strange thing was, they never usually went to the shelter, you know. Your mam, bless her, wasn’t always wanting to go. But they did that night, ’cos we was warned things were looking bad.’
‘Were you in the shelter with them? I thought—’
‘Oh no. I don’t think anyone survived from there. I ran down to my daughter’s, in the next the street. Thank God, there were no direct hits there. But from what I’ve heard, your house was just … blown away. And the shelter too. I’m so sorry, love. I don’t know what to say.’
Elsie didn’t know either. Eventually she took a deep breath and said, ‘And Fay? Where is she?’ She could hardly recognize her own voice it croaked so badly.
‘Fay? Wasn’t she with you?’
There was a sudden shout and Elsie looked to where several firemen were gathering together, peering into a small crater, their faces grey and drawn. Something fluttered in her chest and she tried to steady her breathing. Then she picked her way carefully over the hot bricks and fractured concrete, trying to avoid the shards of glass. Some of the volunteers working on the site followed her too.
‘Stand back, please,’ the firemen’s leader warned the gathering crowd as people began to surge forward. ‘Here, love,’ the original fireman called to Elsie. ‘Looks like there were several people in this hole here. Happen it’s who you’re looking for.’
Elsie thought she was going to be sick. But she forced herself to peer down where the fireman was pointing. Her eyes began to swim and she could barely see. But she did manage to see the torn brown felt of a teddy bear’s foot.