World War II
I was chatting with my friend Irene over the Christmas break and she was telling me about this area during the War. She was only seven when the war broke out and was thirteen when it ended so she remembers quite a bit about it.
Not long after the War started she and her brothers and sisters were all evacuated to the country for safety, but their mum missed them so she went and fetched them all back home again. They lived near Daisy Mill (the big Repo TV place) on Stockport Road not far from what is now Longsight Police Station. Daisy Mill was used during the War by the Army Pay Corp and because it was an Army base constant attempts were made by the Germans to bomb it. It was during one of those raids that a bomb landed in MacKenzie Street, just off Northmoor Road, and flattened two terraced houses. That is why when you walk along MacKenzie Street today there are two houses that are completely different to all the rest.
There was a prisoner of war camp (POW Camp) just behind Daisy Mill and Irene can remember standing at the side of the road watching the prisoners being marched out and down into Manchester to be put on trains to take them to other camps. There was also a POW Camp where Bellevue Speedway is today.
Where Longsight Police Station is today was a big coal yard with a high wall around it. Coal, along with just about everything else, was rationed during the war and people never had enough. Irene and her brothers and sisters used to take a big Silver Cross pram out at night and go down to the coal yard. Some would climb over into the yard and some would remain with the pram. Those in the yard would throw coal over the wall and the rest would load it into the pram. Lots of people used to steal coal from the yard.
One night they went to liberate another pram load of coal, but just as they were arriving at the yard the Police launched a raid as they had heard that people were going to be stealing coal that night. Irene and her brothers and sisters ran away as fast as they could. She and one of her sisters had the pram and ran away from their house towards Kirkmanshulme Lane. Back then Longsight Station was there, near to the entrance to the Asda car park. Irene and her sister had the brilliant idea of trying to steal some coal from the station. There were huge piles of coal there for the steam trains. They managed to sneak past the nightwatchman and stole a pram load of best anthracite. This was the best coal there was and during the War it was kept for the trains. When they got home they realised that the coal was in big lumps, far too large for the fireplace in their house. Irene and her brothers and sisters spent the next week sitting out in the yard every evening smashing the coal up into smaller pieces with hammers.
Irene also recalled that one day she was taken ill and needed emergency surgery on her neck. The ambulance came to collect her and her mother to take her to the hospital. She tells me she was terrified, not about the operation but because they had to drive through Deansgate in the middle of Manchester to reach the hospital and there was a major air raid taking place at the time. She said you could hear the bombs falling all round them and that the ambulance was rocking and shaking with the shock waves from the explosions.
There must be loads of people living around here who can still remember what it was like to be here during the war.
Check out the BBC World War II People’s War web site. Also Imperial War Museum North. Here is a web site about the Manchester blitz.
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