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| Audrey and Robert Staton 2009 |
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| Audrey and Robert 1940 |
The city of steel was always considered a key target like many other manufacturing towns and cities. December 2010 marked the 70th anniversary of the Blitz over Sheffield.
The German bombings of Sheffield took place over the nights of the 12th and 15th of December 1940 during World War 2. The city organised a series of events to mark the anniversary. Sheffield’s Central Library and Crystal Peaks Library had exhibitions of photographs and documents and talks from Suzanne Bingham and Neil Anderson about peoples experiences from the nights the bombs dropped over Sheffield.
On the night of December 15th 1940, 90 enemy air craft attacked the city over a period of three hours from 6.50pm to 10.05pm. The industrial East of the city was hit. Almost 700 people were killed.
A bomb fell in Hawksley Avenue, Sheffield on the 15th. Audrey Staton lived at Dart Square with her aunt after her mother died in 1939, Audrey and her brother Robert were separated when she died and Robert lived with their grandad and gran at 39 Hawksley Avenue.
When to bomb went off, her brother aged six was sitting on the cellar steps & got out unharmed. There were four other family members in the kitchen, her grandad was seriously injured & came out of hospital two months later. They had managed to dig themselves out the next morning; unfortunately the other three family members living in the house were killed after being buried alive.
Audrey Staton who now lives at Malham Gardens, Halfway, is a retired post office worker, she said:”the blitz caused devastation and heartache to my family and the community.”
Audrey went to her neighbour’s house three doors down. When she returned home after the bombings there was a block of concrete on her pillow. She said: “my Aunt said there had been a miracle, for the place where I usually slept in the cellar kitchen, a block of concrete had crushed my pillow, and it would have surely have killed me if I had been there.” All of the windows were broken and part of the roof had been blown off, Audrey said rubble had completely covered the house.
In Sheffield there were precautions against the air raids, Sheffielders prepared for the bombings by covering up their windows with sticky brown paper to prevent the glass from shattering when the bombs dropped. Anderson shelters, made out of steel were being delivered to many households. Friends and relatives had to bolt the shelter together, larger shelters were being built in school grounds – the shelters were later to become the classrooms. Audrey said: “the shelters let water in, but if my cousins had gone in theirs, which they usually did, they would have lived. Their neighbour’s house (in the same yard) had a direct hit as well but they were in the shelter and just got minor injuries. I suppose a lot of people owe their lives to those shelters.”
After the Blitz Audrey said: “we were left without electricity and the telephone lines were damaged, it was chaos”.
There was rationing on certain foods – it became common practice to queue for food; all households had a ration book which they had to produce every time when purchasing food. Audrey said: “we had to stand in long queues for food, it was dark bread, lard, dripping, powdered egg, horsemeat and sometimes we had rabbit which the dogs had caught. The only fruit we got was an apple and orange at Christmas.”
Christmas was a tradition that actually survived the Blitz, much of the city centre lay in ruins. There was no ringing of the church bells on Christmas day, but survivors were so grateful they tried to lighten the mood. They celebrated Christmas in a strange surrounding, but Sheffield’s pantomimes Cinderella and Mother Goose still took place and 6,757 people spent Christmas morning at Hillsborough watching Wednesday and United draw. Audrey said she celebrated it with her brother and family, she said: “we had no Christmas presents or traditional Christmas food due to the rationing, it was a difficult time, I felt lonely without my mother and the Blitz had caused much sadness to local people the mood was very sombre”.
After the Blitz Audrey went to live in a foster home, a terraced house with 2 bedrooms, an attic and 2 rooms downstairs. It had no electricity upstairs so she used candles. At eight years old, she did the washing for eight people living in the foster house, using a tub with a wooden three leg posher and a large mangle with wooden rollers until she got married in 1954.
The Blitz ended in May 1941, when the German air force were sent to prepare for the invasion of Russia.
By Jessica Thorpe
Fact Box
The Blitz ended in May 1941 after. In total over 700 people were killed in the Sheffield Blitz.
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