Pat Gills War memories.

 

Hi, my name is Pat Gill (nee) Brannigan.

 

At the beginning of the war I lived with my grandparents, parents and older sister at 24 Adams Street, Stockton-on-Tees.  We lived above the fish shop that my families ran and this was near to Thornaby Bridge.  

 

Thornaby Bridge and Flour Mills were bombed during the war as it was a German target. I will always remember this as my sister June and I were both blown out of bed one night around 10pm.

 

Shortly after this my parents found a farm to live on at Leeming Aerodrome in North Yorkshire, This was really good as when the air pilots were arriving and taking off they used to wave at us and we got quite friendly with them.  Due to there being a shortage of food during the war these American solders at the airbase used to bring us food including pork and other things which were still available in the USA.  Also we used to go and pick blackberries to make jam for sandwiches when food was short.

 

When the Germans used to try to bomb at the airfield we would see bullets going up in the trace lights when the English solders were firing back at the planes.  The windows used to be blacked out all the times so that we didn’t get bombed and Barrage Balloons were all around the aerodrome to stop the German planes from getting near.

 

During the attacks we had to hide under stairs, kitchen table or if we were playing outside everyone had to get to the nearest air raid shelter. If it was bed time and there was an attack my sister and I hid under our beds, then with living on a farm the mice used to get in the house and when there was fighting on outside the mice would get a fright and run up the curtains.

 

The war was also a tragic time as well. Mam got a telegram to say her brother, who was a dispatch driver delivering orders in the war, had been shot dead by a German sniper hiding in a tree.

Dad got word to say that his brother had been killed on ‘The Hood’ warship which was sank by the German Bismarck.  

 

 

       Grandma got a telegraph to say that two of her sons who were Spitfire pilots had been shot down and were being held prisoner. Then one of my uncles got shot near a pill box in a field and wasn’t seen and died of new pneumonia lying in the wet grass. This was a very traumatic time yet we just got on with life the best we could and hit the problems head on when we had to face them. There wasn’t any other choice. Even though the war was tragic we used to have a lot of fun as well. A lot of evacuees from the cities stayed on our farm in Barrack huts. We used to play hide and seek in the barns to keep ourselves occupied. We had to take our gas masks everywhere with us (Mickey Mouse Masks) in case the air raid sirens went off if we were outside of our home.