In the thick of it

Hazel Laws was in the thick of it. At the time of the big air raid on York, in April 1942, she lived at number three Blake Street. Its front door was blown in by one of the German shells and she only survived by sheltering with her mother and sister in the cellar.

Mrs Laws remembers nothing of this, however. She was only a few months old. But she knows all about her early brush with death thanks to her mother's vivid account.

Her mum was Rhoda Walker, who died last year aged 94. On the day before war broke out, she took up the post of caretaker at what is now number 18 Blake Street. Together with her children and second husband Sydney, who worked on the railways, they moved into the top floor of the townhouse.

Then, as now, the building was home to long-established law firm Munby & Scott.

Many years later Giles Scott, a partner in the firm, asked if Mrs Walker would write down some of her wartime experiences. She did just that, and we have been kindly granted permission to reproduce it below.

The scars of the bombing lasted a long time. Munby & Scott replaced one office window but a glass shortage meant the others were boarded up for more than a year. Fragments of glass ripped the mattresses and became embedded in the walls. If the family had been in bed when the bomb fell, they would not have survived.

Mrs Laws, 63, was christened in St Martin's Church, Coney Street. The ceremony was supposed to be at St Helen's but the vicar got mixed up. A written record of the event was destroyed in the air raid.

Her earliest memories of Blake Street date from just after the war. She remembers how hard her mother worked - cleaning and lighting ten coal fires every morning before breakfast, regularly scrubbing 101 stairs, delivering post and much more.

Their top-floor living quarters included a kitchen, bathroom and lounge. She shared a bedroom on the floor below with sister Rene. Their two older brothers had already left home. She went to Fishergate School.

It was an odd sort of childhood. "I had no one to play with, I had nowhere to play," she said.

There were some families dotted around the city centre, and she would call round at prestigious addresses such as the Judges' Lodgings and the Guildhall to join children of other live-in staff. She also remembers playing near the printing presses of the Evening Press in its Coney Street days.

The top of Blake Street was a wonderful vantage point for watching the many parades, processions and military tattoos that regularly took to the streets. "We could also see the people on the Minster very clearly," Mrs Laws said.

Recently she was shown around the Blake Street property by Giles Scott. "It brought back memories," she said.

Rhoda Walker's memories of war

MY first contact with No 3 Blake Street was when father-in-law chatted about taking his school holidays there approximately 150 years ago, with the Giles family, his relatives living there. They looked after him during school holidays when his parents farmers were busy with harvest on their farm.

Years later friends came to visit me. They were leaving No 3 and the flat with caretaking position would be vacant - they were the Kellys, Mr Kelly being a policeman at the Minster. I decided to apply for the position - being in the city centre and having three children I had a good choice of schools etc.

Col Scott was away at a meeting in France the war was imminent, however on his return we had an interview and given the position which we held for 16 years.

We moved in on September 2, 1939, and war was declared on September 3. Living on the fourth floor Col Scott decided to have an air-raid warning bell fitted on our landing. This was sounded whenever German planes passed over the coastline to give us and our air-raid wardens time to go to the basement for shelter.

The staff of Munby & Scott took turns to do night-time duties, sleeping in office used for bedroom until the alarm sounded. Several of the staff were in the forces including Mr John Shannon, solicitor, but now in the Navy.

Many nights were spent in the cellar awaiting the all clear, with three children this was an ordeal, we had sleeping facilities and games etc.

However the main blitz on York came. After an early warning we managed to escape once again to the cellar, this time taking two female wardens from Anfield's Milliners shop with us - they were too afraid to do fire watch on the roof.

It was a night of terror, one warden kept fainting with fear - terrific bombs exploded and later we were told fire bombs all around us.

My husband was on night duty at the railway he came off duty at 6am to be greeted with police and wardens saying we weren't expected to be alive, a large bomb having fallen next door - however wardens entered the cellar from a man-hole in the pavement to find us all alive but petrified!

The large bomb had fallen on the greengrocers nearby and demolished the three-storey building, together with St Martin's Church and the Leopard shopping arcade in Coney Street. Not a window was left, nor a door still hanging.

Blake Street was ankle deep in glass and the large Victorian door at No 3 was blown along the passageway to the back. Upstairs in the offices and our flat the windows, doors and furniture everywhere were badly damaged. There was not a pane left anywhere and beds were covered with glass. In addition firebombs had fallen all around.

We left to spend weeks at Warren Farm, Dunnington, where my in-laws lived. Two of our children were listed on the casualty list at school, but I soon rectified that.

I came back to Blake Street and along with Felicity Scott helped to clean up the buckets of soot and glass. One office was made habitable - our flat took weeks to rectify and in all it took two years to complete.

Updated: 10:06 Monday, November 08, 2004