The Baedeker Raid on York

The Baedeker Raid on York, April 1942
My Mother, Anne Atkinson’s Story

By Valerie Atkinson (posthumous war baby)

On the night of the big raid on York, the sirens didn’t go off. Not until after the bombs had started dropping, anyway. My youngest sister worked in the police section of the railway offices, and she knew something was going to happen. So she told us this was a time when we must get out to the air raid shelter at the first sound of an attack. We were all asleep when the explosions began, but my sister was up first and running round the house shouting “this is it — get down the back garden as fast as you can. Put your coats on over your pyjamas.” We had to call frantically up to the attic of our house, which was a big terrace house near the centre of town, to waken my brother. He just wouldn’t get up. Then we tried to find Mum, who had gone missing. It was all chaos and confusion and pretty frightening, but eventually we found her, dusting things in the air raid shelter. She always kept it neat and tidy, with tins of simple provisions There were also basic first aid supplies, all lined up, and a pack of playing cards. I dont know how she ever thought we could concentrate on cards, but she herself was a whiz at whist. Maybe she thought she could beat us because our minds were elsewhere.

The shelter was an Andersen, down at the end of what was really a long back yard. Mum had lived in the country as a girl and brought lots of country ways with her to York. She kept chickens in a homemade henhouse, for their eggs. She would wring their necks herself when we needed to eat them on special occasions like birthdays or Christmas. I cant remember what happened to them that night; they must have been terrified, poor things. There were vegetables growing in the little back garden too, and bicycles leaning up against the alley wall. There were four of us, as well as Mum and Dad: me, my two sisters and one brother. I had been married for two years, but my husband was a serving officer in the RAF, and although I was sometimes able to join him at his postings, mostly I waited for him to come home to me, in York. I either stayed in my family’s house, or with my in-laws. I was the first to get married, and had the full works: a gorgeous white wedding dress, red roses, bridesmaids in matching gowns, and the men in top hats and tails. My oldest sister made all the dresses (she was a brilliant seamstress), and I could never understand why she chose to wear her ATS uniform. But she was always a bit stern and strict, being the eldest, and we didn’t dare try to make her change her mind. I lent my beautiful dress to a friend who couldn’t afford one. She decided to take it to a cleaner’s on Leeman Road just before her wedding, and it took a direct hit from one of the bombs. I forget now what she got married in.

The door of the Andersen shelter faced the back of our house. We could see fires, huge leaping flames in the reflection of the windows. “Its the station, and the carriage works”, my sister said. She was agitated because that was where she worked and some of her colleagues were on duty. It was also very close -- too close for comfort -- to where we lived. My father was even more agitated because he wanted to go up the street to his fire-watching post and Mum insisted it was too dangerous. But Dad said people would think he was a coward if he didn’t go, and they almost had a row, and then, eventually, he got his coat and made off through the house saying “no-one’s going to give me a white feather”, with my brother chasing after him and Mum close to tears. She almost never cried. People sometimes said she could be hard, unfeeling. They said she didn’t even cry when my husband was killed, later that year. But I dont remember that. I know how much she cared, whether she wept or not.

I’m not sure how long the bombing went on. The noise was tremendous and the whole place smelt like bonfire night gone mad. My father and brother came back safe and sound, though. They said that some of the German planes had flown so low that they had been able to machine-gun the shops on the main street nearby, and the Co-op’s windows were shattered and precious tins of food rolling down the street. Somehow, I dont think anyone pinched anything. They just scrunched their way over the broken shards and put things back through the gaping glass. Everyone had too much of a conscience about stealing, and anyway, in that area, most people wanted to help each other. It was all kind of exciting really, especially when the raid was over. After the all-clear went, even the silence seemed loud, as if signalling the end of something extraordinary. Perhaps it was just that our ears were ringing.

So it took us a long time to settle ourselves and we had still not gone back to bed when we heard someone at the door. To my amazement, there was my husband, looking dusty and tired in his RAF uniform. And me with my hair still in curlers, and the most peculiar conglomeration of clothes you can possible imagine. And, I’d been eating pickled onions! It didn’t bother him. He was just so relieved to find us all in one piece. “Early delivery”, he said. “What do you fancy? The post, the milk, or me?” One of his all-time favourite sayings was “a loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou”. So I didn’t need to answer his question, did I? He’d been on his way home by train, when they heard that the German planes were following the route of the railway and York was being bombed, so everyone had been turfed out 20 miles away, and he’d walked for ages, and then hitched a lift. He must have been worried out of his mind, not knowing what had happened in York. My Mum said we should go straight to my in-laws, a ten-minute walk away, to make sure they were all alright, but when we got there (letting ourselves in with the big key hanging on the string behind the letterbox), we discovered they’d all gone back to bed. So we made ourselves a cup of tea, and stoked up the fire and settled down to catch up with everything. The pair of us, we never went to bed that night. We waited until daytime, when everyone else had got up.

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