history
i live not far from grafton and corby and have found the following reports from local people that lived through it.
1939 there was a lot of speculation about a war and as a result air raid shelters were built at schools and near places where a large number of people worked. Anderson shelters were given to each household that had a garden where it could be erected and buried under ground.
Houses without gardens were allocated a place in a public shelter that were being built on sites around the towns. In Corby an underground rescue and gas decontamination station was built in Lloyds Road. An underground hospital was built in Weldon Road, on Stewarts and Lloyds land. Because of the threat of gas being used, everyone was issued with a gas mask. Babies had a type that the baby was put in and air had to be constantly pumped in. Larger children had Mickey Mouse masks. Later all had to be modified as other types of gases were expected to be used.
Men were encouraged to join the local L.D. V. (the Local Defence Volunteers), later to become the Home Guard. The air raid wardens and the rescue crews were set up, and the volunteers were trained using makeshift equipment, for example the L.D.V. had wooden guns, the rescue crews used an old lorry to take them to one of the iron stone pits where they did their training which very often broke down on the way. Lots of things became scarce as people that could afford it were buying things to store. This caused people 10 queue for things that
were in short supply when stocks arrived in the shops. This continued until rationing was introduced, but even then queues still formed for goods in short supply that were not on rations.
On Sunday morning the 3rd September 1939 when it was announced on the radio that we were at war with Germany I was staying with my cousins at Draycott, a small village between Nottingham and Derby. I was 10 years old and always spent the 5 weeks school holiday there. Each year during the last week I was always stopped by the school attendance officer to see why I wasn't at school. This was because Nottinghamshire only had 4 weeks holiday and
went back a week before Northamptonshire. My cousin wrote to mother and asked if they could keep me until the end of the war as Corby was sure to be a target for the German bombers. Mother wrote back saying "no if we are going to die we will all die together". The day it was announced we were at war a young girl from Draycott went missing. All the village turned out to look for her and it wasn't until 6 o'clock that she was found sitting under a bridge over the canal. In the does and don'ts of information handed out it said if there is a gas attack if possible get near water.
All around Corby they were installing antiaircraft guns with a searchlight crew manned by soldiers and A.T.S. Girls. Smokescreens were along all the roads around the steelworks. They were manned by the solders in The Pioneer Corps, who were stationed in huts erected in the field where the fair for Corby feast was held in South Road. The thick black smoke they produced covered the works so it could not be seen from the air. The smell they produced hung about long after they were extinguished depending which way the wind was blowing.
Aerodromes were built at Desborough, Kings Cliff and Wansford for fighter planes. The one built at Harrington was a bit of a mystery at the time it had all sorts of planes on the runways, but you never saw any taking off, other than the funny looking Lysanders which were used mainly for reconnaissance" It was after the WM we learnt this was where spy's and equipment for the underground was flown from. When the Americans [Yanks] entered the war aerodromes were built all around Corby at Benefield, Polebrook, Grafton Underwood, Moleswotth, Chelveston, Alconbury, among others. These were for the B 17's known as
"The Flying Forts". I suppose they got this name because of the number of guns they had. The airdrome at Harringworth was for Dakotas the supply planes. These were also the planes that towed the gliders which played a major part in the disastrous attack on Arnhem. On some Sundays if you were in uniform you could get a flight in a Dakota. Both the times my brother who was in the Rescue Squad and I, who was in the army Cadets cycled to Harringworth they weren't taking people up as they were practicing taking off with the gliders. They let us stop and took us to watch them practice. There were two ways of getting the gliders in the air. One was towing them the other was the plane to fly low over what was like goal posts with a rope from the glider over the top which was hooked up by a hook hanging from the plane. This way must have given the men in the glider a big jolt as it was snatched up. They gave us cigarettes and chewing gum before we left.. Some of the airdromes used to send lorries into the towns to take girls to the dances they held on the bases. This was how some of the romances started and led to the weddings where the bride was known as a G.l. Bride.
The American planes did all the daylight raids. They used to start to take off about 7.30 am. and fly around to get into formations always in denominations of 3 usually 18, 21 or 24. All the formations would join up and the sky was full as they set off. If you were near an aerodrome you could see them return. On one occasion when I was at a farm I used to visit that was under the flight path for Benefield the planes were returning. As usual they had counted the planes out and were counting them back. It had been a bad day there were 6 missing but sometimes some were late returning later a plane was heard and we went outside to see it circle the airfield throwing out coloured flares. These were to let the ground crews know the conditions when their radios weren't working some meant there were wounded on board others the state of the aircraft. Two more returned throwing out flares. Then much later we heard another. This time we could not believe our eyes only one of its 4 engines was working and as it passed over very low you could see holes in the wings and part of its tail was missing it was throwing out flares as it approached the runway but its wheels weren't down. We saw it land in the field before the aerodrome. At the week end we walked to where it had landed, there were no guards about so we had a good look around .it was much bigger than we expected, With all the damage it had suffered it was a wonder that it flew at all..
The night raids were carried out by the R.A.F., with at the beginning of the war the Wellingtons the 2 engine bombers which in those days were considered very big. These were later replaced with the 4 engine Halifax and Lancaster. I don't know where these were stationed but they were very high when they passed over. They were never in formation just single ones but close together. The radio next day would say "a thousand bomber raid was carried out over the name of a town in Germany". Although we were at war with Germany you always felt sorry for the people in these towns as we knew how people in our bombed
Towns and Cities suffered.
I used to do a lot of the shopping as mother worked in the steelworks as did a lot of women during the war years. We had hens and we had a pig which we killed for bacon I also kept rabbits for eating. We also had a big garden where we grew a lot of vegetables. Although some things were rationed and others were in very short supply we never went hungry. Up to petrol rationing a butcher came from Kettering who mother had meat off for years, when he stopped coming I went to Kettering every Saturday morning to fetch the meat I stopped going when the ration dropped to 10 pence worth of meat and 2 pence of com beef a week [now a total of 5p].
Corby was very lucky as a major Steel Works it was never a target for the bombers. We only had bombs dropped 3 times and then it was by a single plane. Once some bombs fell on houses in Stevensons Way and in the works. The ones in the works fell in a coke wagon and on the corrugated sheds they had erected to cover the red hot slag ladles. These were at the top of our garden and as a result all the windows were blown out of the houses in Lloyds Road. Some of the houses the ceiling came down including the one that fell on my brother's and my bed. Next morning the gardens were covered in coke which we collected and burnt on the fire. There was also some twisted corrugated sheets and scaffold tubes. On another occasion a single bomb was dropped in the road outside the incomplete new post office which carried the scars for many years. A "bread basket" which was one high explosive bomb and lots of incendiary bombs was dropped in a field near the Clay Holes. No body was hurt in any of the incidents.
The war years were sad times for some people. Families were split with some going to war, others being sent to work in essential jobs. Families were losing loved ones either being killed in the forces or by bombs. For others it was a good time, some got rich by dealing in the black market. These were the rogues who would sell things that were scarce at a very high price. Some bought coupons cheap off large families who could not afford to buy the goods and sold them at a high price. There was a good side to it People were more helpfi11 to each other and people shared things, some times with strangers. The war years are responsible for many changes in our life style. Before the war very few women worked for money except for taking in washing and maybe doing a bit of housework for the better off. Wages were very low few people owned their own house most people lived in "tied houses". These were houses that went with the job, lose your job or leave it and you had to get out. A few rented their homes as they do today. Most people worked for the same person or company all their lives now people move around. Very few people had cars, now every one at 17 wants one. Holidays if you were lucky was a week at the seaside or a week stopping with relations. It was unheard of to go abroad. Up to and including the war years work was hard. There were not many machines about most things were done by hand.
