Compiled by John Mellor
Anne Gilbert (99)
“Walking back to our house in Lyons Street on 12th December 1940, the siren went as we came over Scott Road. We had only just got near All Saints church when the bomb fell on the houses on Ellesmere Road North. 11 people lost their lives.
“On December 16th there were 12 adults in our cellar which had been reinforced. We heard the screaming as the bomb came over our house. A few minutes later the warden shouted down the coal hole “Get out quick there’s a bomb under the church – go down the street”. The bomb did not explode but it took several days to make it safe.
“When we were allowed back home there was no water, gas or electricity. A house on Petre Street was letting us have some water. I was walking up Lyons Street with two pails of water when some houses blew up on Lyons Road. It was a frightening bang and I did spill a little of the water!”
Doug “Taffy” Jones (Normandy veteran)
“My father had a bad time in the First World War; he was shell shocked and gassed and never worked again after returning from the war.
“Although I hated the war, it was necessary to fight the evil of Nazism which was seeking to dominate the world. The other good thing about the war was the tremendous comradeship that developed between those of us who were fighting together.”
Dorothy Gilbert
“My uncle, Albert Edriss Moody, is one of those whose name is inscribed on the memorial at Vis-en-Artois for those who died within the battle near there whose bodies were unidentifiable. He served with the King’s Own Yorkshire Light infantry and died on September 14th 1918 aged 22.”
Ken Riley (Normandy veteran)
“The worst thing about the war was seeing all the avoidable death and destruction – war is a fool’s game. The one good thing I could say about it was the total comradeship, sharing and risking our lives together, sharing our last cigarette. This is something I haven’t found since returning to ‘civvy’ street.”
Margaret Mellor
“My uncle, Harold Nelson, was reported as ‘missing’ during May 1918 somewhere in France. Despite extensive enquiries at the War Office by my grandfather, a local businessman in Rochdale, no information was forthcoming about how, where, or in what circumstances he died and there is no known grave. He was 23 years old, a Methodist local preacher and had become engaged just before he enlisted in 1916. His fiancée never married.
“On a visit to the World War I battlefields a few years ago we discovered that his name is engraved on a war memorial in Soissons, Northern France.”