The Nostalgia column with Margaret Watson: Remembering a lucky escape in WWII

Miraculously, all five survived, but tragically two other neighbours in North View, Savile Town, Mrs Mary Ann Scott and her daughter Enid, were killed.

Three members of the Dewsbury Home Guard on duty that night in the colliery offices of the former Ridings Colliery, Wakefield Road, were also killed during the bombing over Dewsbury.

They were Sidney Burridge, Ernest Lodge and Wilfred King, who were all employed at Shaw Cross Pit.

In the Savile Town attack, little Brenda Hartley, was lucky to escape with only cuts and bruises, but her mother, Hilda, received serious head, back and leg injuries.

Brenda, who was later to marry Roy Haley, whose family lived at Gibraltar Farm, Thornhill, never spoke about the incident publicly.

Many years after the tragedy, she asked me to write about her story so that the full facts of what had happened to her and her family could be told.

Strict war-time censorship laws prevented publication of where bombings took place, and people only found out through word of mouth.

Brenda said when the air raid siren went it was a last minute decision by her mother to vacate their home and shelter with neighbours, Harry and Nellie Naylor in their cellar.

Nellie’s sister, Enid, also sheltered with them.

Minutes later a bomb landed on the Hartley home and, like that of the Scott family was flattened.

Brenda’s father, Dennis Hartley, was fire-watching at Newsome’s Mill in Batley Carr, when the bombing raid was taking place.

When he got home, he saw the rescuers carrying out the bodies of Mrs Scott and her daughter, and he thought his wife and daughter had also been killed.

Brenda’s story last week ended with her sitting dazed on a plank of wood still clinging to the little dog she had rescued.

Her story continues this week:

“I was sitting there on the plank of wood when a man from the Salvation Army picked me up and carried me to his house in Warren Street.

“He had a daughter called Joyce and they had to bath me several times to get rid of all the dirt and grime.

“My dad later found out where I was, and we had to go live with my Uncle Victor in Headfield Road until we got sorted out. We slept together in a single bed in their box room,

“We had nothing left in the world, only the clothes we stood up in.

“Everything in the house had gone and we had nothing to wear.

“I remember one day dad coming home with a sack of clothes from the American Red Cross.

“I can still see him wearing a pair of trousers which were half-way up his leg and I wore a dress which was down to my ankles.

“My older sister Joyce was still in Mitchell Laithes Hospital with Scarlet Fever when it all happened.

“My dad begged the doctors to keep her in because we didn’t have a home for her to come back to.

“The bomb dropped on December 12th, so we didn’t have a Christmas that year.

“Mother suffered from really bad head and when she came out of hospital we were given a council house in Thornhill.

“We had nothing when we moved in. We had to start from scratch because we’d lost everything.

“We just had to make do.

“I still think of that night many times, but I don’t talk about it much. If I do, I just cry and cry.

“Afterwards, my sister, Joyce, and I kept reading stories about the war and where the bombs fell but we knew the real story had never been told

“I often wondered what happened to the Naylor family because our families went through so much together that night. I feel I owe my life to them.

“I still have a piece of the bomb which fell. One of the workmen clearing up the site found it and gave it to dad.”

Brenda was later to marry Roy Haley, whose family lived at Gibraltar Farm, Thornhill, but sadly both have since passed away.

They had a long and happy marriage and raised four children, Elaine Shaw, Carolyn Clark, Barry Haley and Anthony Haley, who have loving memories of their mum and dad.

Brenda’s eldest daughter, Elaine Shaw, is grateful that her mother and grandmother’s story have been told, and says she still has the piece of bomb which hit her grandma Hilda.

Brenda’s granddaughter, Lauren Haley, contacted me to say: “When we were young my grandma told us about what had happened.

“I will definitely never forget it, and will tell it to my kids too because it is important that they understand.”

○ A brilliant and thoroughly researched account of what happened that night, written by Jane Roberts, can be found via the following link: https://tinyurl.com/y9o6g3mg

○ Do you have any memories from bygone days that you would like to share with our readers?

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