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Memories of WW2
"The first memory I have of the war was when the proprietor of the local shop (Mr. L. Jarron) came down the street shouting that war had been declared. Everyone was standing at their doors."
"Concrete barricade blocks were built on certain roads. There was just enough space for one vehicle to pass through. Do you remember where these were?"
"One day while on the way to the hairdresser's in Back Row a plane came overhead and a man pushed me over a wall by Spoor's Chapel. The plane was a German one and it machine-gunned children playing in the schoolyard in Rye Hill."
"The night they bombed the Derwent instead of the Tyne the sky was lit like illuminations with flares and incendiary bombs."
Home Guard Certificate
"All the women of the pit streets used to hold Beetle drives (no Bingo then) to raise money for a victory party after England won the war."
"Air raid sirens were sounded after the Chamberlain broadcast on the wireless, which woke the baby."
"If bananas appeared in fruit shops there were big queues. Bartering food for goods and services was usual in the village. People grew their own vegetables. Patterson's nursery on Grange Lane was where the prisoners of war were put to work."
"A shell came across the park and landed in a lady's back yard. We thought it was German but it came from the big gun in Lobley Hill known as Big Bertha, The heavy Ack Ack battery sited on Fellside Road. Everyone was evacuated from their homes and came to our house."
"An army camp of the Kent's regiment was on Fellside Road and Larkspur."
"My father and others used to bring them (soldiers) home for supper and we even had their wives come to stay."
"I used to deliver the newspaper (to the army camp) every day and used to look forward to my huge mug of tea and a big jam sandwich."
"Holidays were spent at home. Bands played and we had dances. The army played football matches against Whickham in fancy dress."
June moved to the trading estate making filters for gas masks while other buildings were being adapted for producing shell cases. The pay was five pounds a week. The pay was increased when working on furnaces.
"Working on the furnaces was alright in winter."
Marley Hill Home Guard
"The Gibside Estate was used during the last war as a training ground for the Army and the Home Guard for grenade and Sten gun practise etc., the canteen being in the now derelict hall."
"My daughter was getting christened in church, another lady was a godfather short. So one of the young soldiers who had just arrived from France stood as a godfather for her."
"At a time of very heavy bombing in London, Cockney evacuees arrived on Tyneside. A group of children, mothers and grandmothers were billeted in the disused church school building in Dunston. My grandmother was in the WRVS. I went with her when she went to see how they were coping. I remember being fascinated by their Cockney accents."
"We did not go to school full time from 1940."
"There wasn't a lot of room so the Catholic school children and the Board school children would go in the morning one week and the Hill school children would go in the afternoon. The next week it was reversed."
"I was playing in the street with my sisters and some friends because of course there was no traffic. Suddenly and simultaneously we heard a plane and a machine-gun firing and realised in fact they were above our heads and the bullets were bouncing along the street and our mother was shrieking at us to get in the house.
Our main interest was in looking round to see if we could pick up some shrapnel."
"Someone came knocking round the doors saying that the Dunston Board school was going to be opened and soldiers from Dunkirk would be billeted there and could people manage to offer a bath and a hot meal to one or two soldiers."