The memoirs of Cissie Ewen

War years

Air Raids

It could have been after all my brothers were married that a house became vacant in Silkey’s Lane, and Mam moved back there, or just before Mattie married. Anyhow, after Mattie married, Maggie and Fred moved in with Mam, and from then on Mam, until she died in 1946, was with Maggie.

There were two convents in West Jesmond; Villa Maria at one end, and La Sagesse. Both were French orders. La Sagesse was also a girls’ boarding school. When Jack was four, he began going to Villa Maria on Saturday mornings for religious instruction, and when he was five, he started school at West Jesmond, quite near the Henshelwood flats.

When there was an air raid, which was often, we used to sit in a corner under the stairs until it was over. When there was one during the night, or after Jack had gone to bed, I would try to carry him downstairs without waking him up and get him back up the stairs after the raid so he wouldn’t be aware of it. He was about three and half years by then and getting quite heavy to carry when the Air Raid siren went. There would be times when the raids would be very bad and noisy and happen several times in one night, and the house would shake. At such times he would wake up, hear the planes, and ask, “Are they the King’s planes?”

The sirens seemed to start each night as soon as it was dusk, sometimes even before Jack got to sleep. I used to leave the little stool handy under the stairs where I could sit and nurse him. Miss Robertson used to come and sit with us, but if it was during the night, she mostly stayed in bed, but like us not sleeping. Sometime we could be there a long while, other times we just got settled and the All Clear would go. After getting back upstairs, it would at times sound again. There were shelters built in the back lanes and streets, which people used mainly in the daytime, though some went there at night. Some people had air raid shelters made in their homes under their dining room tables.

We had incendiary bombs enter a house in Grosvenor Road, and at the top end of the street. The people had to evacuate their homes until the army came and disposed of a bomb. I cannot remember if it caused any fire or just damage. There was a lot of house damage around us. Many houses were on fire not far from us through incendiary bombs; we were very lucky. It was very frightening when one heard the bombs swishing past overhead and wondered how near they were going to fall. One time the depot in Newcastle which stored all the butter, sugar, fats and stores for all the North-East was hit and three weeks later they still had hose pipes running through the streets of Newcastle putting the fire out, for it was still smouldering in parts of it.