Barrow Sixth Form A level film and media student Matthew Dodd captures memories of those who lived through the Barrow Blitz in this powerful short documentary.
So informative. My mother who was born in 1930 and all her family lived on Walney Island. My grandfather was a boilermaker working in the ship yards during the war. Mum often talked of the war and running to bomb shelters. She was later sent to stay with her aunt away from Barrow as were many children. The entire family moved to Australia in 1948 where I now live. Have a strong connection to Barrow and plan to visit again in the not too distant future.
Enjoyed watching this, full of info I wasn't aware of. I no longer live in Barrow but as I get older for some reason I want to know more about the town I was born in.
What a great film. Thank you very much. I was born in Barrow in 1953 but my late Father was also a Barrovian. He was born 100 years ago today (30 Dec 1920). Like many Barrow boys he was away from the town serving in the RAF but must have been concerned for his parents who lived on Hibbert Road near Barrow Station. His father was the "Gilbert" in Gilbert & Kellerts and I am aware they retooled to manufacture for the War effort.
When we were children in the 1950s, we used to play in the air-raid shelters in the grassy area by Walney Channel at the bottom of Ramsden Dock Road, called by us 'Down the Docks'. My mother said in the war, my grandmother used to send her out with tea for the conscientious objectors that were working on some task down there. My mother, a born pessimist, is the only person that I knew who lived through the war who said she thought the Germans would win. She said they had beaten everyone else, very quickly. Why should we be any different was what she felt. She married a submariner, my dad, whose submarine had put into Barrow. This where I come into the story.
And here is something to make you all think about war and its damaging effects on people . There was a young woman and her child, they lived in Marsh St. for a while by her in laws. Her hubby was once a British soldier in Germany, the woman was 19 years old, couldn't speak English, had had her German citizenship revoked because she married the father of her child, she was now British, a stranger in a strage land. The baby grew and went to school on Walney, Vickers school, down the bottom of Trent Vale where he lived. He didn't have many friends, if any, because you don't play with "nazis", this was 1955! And I will never forgive those who spat on me and my mother. That is also the history of Barrow in Furness
My late father was a fire watcher on the roof of Vickers during the final year of his apprenticeship in 1942. He said he would recognise the german bomb aimers if he ever met them in Benidorm, they were that close and lit up by a green light.
My grandad was an arp officer during the Blitz and he got blown up with an unexplored incendiary bomb which landed on walney beach he was clearing a crowd of people who was to near to the bomb and it went off luckily he lived but could not work in the iron works for almost a year another story he told was one night on arp patrol in hindpool as the German bombers were on their way caught a man who apparently was a teacher shining a lamp at the top of the slag heap to help bring the German bombers in line with the direction of the shipyard he said the arp wardens grabbed him and arrested him my grandfather told us he never heard of what happened to this German spy teacher it sounded like something straight out of a John le carre. Also my dad told happy stories as a young lad playing in the ruins of the bombed houses having mass group fights with throwing bricks at each other in a play fight my Nan also told of living in Cooke Street hindpool with my grandfather and 5 children and a bomb landed around bath street hindpool with the blast blowing all the glass in the house and put all the doors in the house off in the frames so you could not shut the doors easily i remember this too be true when I was a young child in the 1970’s amazing stories we cannot afford to lose to history it’s great that these stories are being kept lives
Very informative video, so thanks very much for posting. I have enjoyed trips to Barrow watching football. It is an interesting town surrounded by nice countryside.
They didn't need photos from the Hindenburg, who built the biggest crane in Barrow docks? Germans! They made their maps and made notes years before, it was known as the Beardmore Crane and was built in 1903 by the German firm of Benrather Maschinenfabrik near Düsseldorf. The bombing of Barrow docks was deemed strategic to the German High Command.
