MUM'S WAR MEMORIES 8

GRANDMA CHASE



My father's mother was a widow as I have said. After bringing up her own family on her own (my father was the eldest of six), her daughter who was a widow died in the early forties so my grandmother brought her grandchildren up as well. The youngest one was called Edith after my mother.



At the beginning of the war my grandmother was living in a little terrace house in Bath Street. My father thought the world of her and helped her financially whenever he could. Before the war he took me every Sunday morning to see her and she would sometimes say, "Would you like a new silk suit?" What colour would you like?" She made me feel important asking me that and I would give it deep consideration. Then she would say "Lift your arms up" and she would measure me. She never needed a pattern, she would ask me if I would like a collar or not and if I would like long or short sleeves.



In two weeks the skirt and top would be finished and it would fit perfectly. She crocheted beautifully too and I can remember the fineness of her work. My mother always said she was really clever with her hands. She also made wonderful jams and pickles. In stature she was small, rounded and always laughing.



I think she must have been one of the first people in Grimsby to be bombed. She lost everything and had no money. My ghrandfather who I lived with bought her some second hand furniture and found her another house to rent. I think, being the only man in the family left at home, he felt responsible for us all. Unbelievable, within months she had been bombed again, her house (in Bath Street) devastated but she herself was safe because she had been in the street air raid shelter. The houses did not have much garden so were unable to have Anderson Shelters.



Again my grandfather bought her furniture and found her another house to rent which she lived in until the end of 1943.



It was a Saturday morning, all through Friday night the bombing had been relentless and my mother heard that my grandmother's street had been badly hit. Her and I went quickly to see if she had been hurt, I can't remember the name of the street but I remember it was somewhere off Victor Street. When we got there the street was cordoned off with ropes and the ARP men said "You can't go past here - there might be unexploded bombs. We are trying to clear the debris to see if anyone is alive". I could see my granmother's house was bombed to the ground along with many others but we thought she would have been in the communal air raid shelter. Mum asked an ARP warden if she had been in the shelter, she said it was her mother-in-law and she needed to know. He said he would try and find out and in a little while he came back and said he was sorry but she hadn't been in the shelter.



My mother started to sob, tears running down her face. "How on earth can I write to your father and tell him his mother has been killed" she said. I just stood there - it seemed ages when I noticed the men digging away at my grandmother's house. They had unearthed a big leather settee and were turning it right way up and unbelievably up stood my grandma. I broke through the cordon and ran to her. I said, "Are you hurt Grandma?" She answered me "No I'm not hurt but I'm hungry - I thought we got food when we were bombed". She was unbelievable!"



She came home with us, the three of us walked all the way to our house, her filthy dirty in an old nightie and dressing gown. I don't think she cared a jot. I remember she enjoyed her dinner that Rene had cooked and my poor Grandfather had to start all over again with trying to get her fixed up in a house.



She didn't want my mother to write and tell my father anything about the raid - she said it was her own fault if she had been killed. She had heard the siren but couldn't be bothered to go to the air raid shelter so she had gone downstairs, tipped the settee over and crawled underneath it and gone back to sleep! She said I'm sure he's enough things to worry about. I said Grandma you're always getting bombed and she said "Well he's had three goes at me now and not managed to finish me off, so I reckon he will give up! And he did!