Tyneside and Northumberland

Grandads new shoes: Tyneside Blitz

In August 1940 German Air Fleet 15 began bombing raids on the North-East from its bases in Stavanger,...

The Mournes and Me: Bridie's Story

Then they took over St. Mary's Hall and the Institute, and they turned St. Mary's into a kitchen,...

Evacuation for Mothers-to-be, South Shields, and Fear of Sirens

In 1976 I was working as a teacher in Sussex and the head of the establishment was an ex nun who we...

My Service Life, by a WAAF

I then took a ‘letters’ course at Holton where we had mice in the lockers after the food that...

Keep Your Hair On!

Right on cue, the air raid warning siren went off and we all had to depart into our air raid shelters, poor...

Fighter Command WAAF

I have a photograph taken at the Usworth NAFFI of Mum plus a number of other WAAFs... She remembers meeting...

Rags to Praise

Richard Scott whilst a boiler stoker at the Newcastle Main Post Office had gone to night classes and...

Memories of World War Two

Then when I was at home I went to our village hall in Birtley to teach the British, Yanks and Polish...

My WW2

Within minutes of his announcement, barrage balloons were hoisted in the air above our house in Tynemouth,...

What a Memory

At Hutton Park I had the job of putting radar in Whitley Bombers My wife came down for a holiday....

Little Snippets From Newcastle upon Tyne

Walking from work you saw planes very low, could actually see the pilots, he dropped the bombs, hitting the...

A Grave Story Indeed!

Another bomb exploded about 150 m away damaging the roof of Alan's house with flying debris. A stick of...

Memories of an Evacuee: Newcastle-upon-Tyne to Cumbria

What transpired was that the government of the day had put into action a mass movement of children from the...

I'll Be Home for Christmas

When the Germans found John was an engineer they put him into a factory with men from all different...

Whitley Bay Air-Raids

One of the worst air-raids in Whitley Bay was when the air-craft carrier HMS Victorious came down the river...

Wartime Evacuation to Bellingham Camp

They went to farms, camps or private houses and my sister and I went to Bellingham North Tyne at Brownrigg...

A Child at War

My Gran lived in number 9 three doors away with my uncle Harold and Grandad Nevison. Grandpa was a...

Not Required for WW2: A Deputy in the Coal Mines

He was a member of the Scotswood rowing club, Single Scull i think he termed it, he was acepted with glee...

Memories of Tyne and Wear: An Army Regular in Perth and London

I left home and joined as an army regular at the age of eighteen in Perth, Inverness, Scotland....

Emmeine - the Story before I went away

My other sister whose husband was in the royal corp of signals, he got killed at age 26yrs with three of...

Memories of Tyne and Wear: The Forestry Service

The lady cried for the dog and the budgie, but not for her husband, I was ok and I walked out of...

Memories of Tyne and Wear: A Young Royal Engineer in London

My father was a joiner and worked on many of the big ships that came out of the Tyneside Wallsend ship...

Nursing on Tyneside

She went into nursing and worked at a hospital across the Tyne and remembers having to be made to go into...

Air Raids Over Jarrow

Dad used the railway sleepers to make bunks for us and we children slept in the Anderson shelter every...

HMS Kelly limps into Tyne

We witnessed the battleship HMS Kelly limp into the Tyne in 1942. Lord Mountbatton was in charge of the...

Elsie Forgets Her Teeth!

I can remember Mr Jones's shouting to Mrs Jones: ‘ Come on Elsie — Hurry up... To which Mr...