I visit George twice a week,we usually watch a film tv or dvd.Tonight it was Tarzan.Well it finished before 10-00 my time for coming home.So we spoke about his young life aged 10 during the war and living in Hunslet Leeds 10. And one night in particular,the night hiis street got bombed.His house was near an enginering works.What happened that night was a five foot circular mine was dropped by parachute to hit the factory,but it blew off target by five yards,it dropped through the roof of Alf Batleys house,tore a big hole in the roof and came to rest in the bedroom of said Alf who was smoking his pipe in bed,it failed to go off,thus saving most of Hunslet including 10 year old George his parents and neighbours.George and many others got to touch it before the police showed up,including women who took the parachute and made clothing out of it.Sadly later a chap named Frank Hallas lost his house along wirh his wife and two children and while digging rubble to get to them someone stole his coat which he had taken off while digging.George is a wonderful story teller.
Wonderful George.
- Thread starter postman
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ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
George sounds a real character!
My dad also told me stories about wartime parachute mines. He used to collect the mines rather than the parachutes...
My dad also told me stories about wartime parachute mines. He used to collect the mines rather than the parachutes...
Chislenko
Veteran
Well I've learned something today. I recall during the sixties there used to be rugby league on the TV most Saturday afternoons (with the marvelous Eddie Waring and his famous "Up and Under") and Hunslet were quite often on it.
But until today I don't think I ever knew where Hunslet was.
But until today I don't think I ever knew where Hunslet was.
Cycleops
Legendary Member
- Location
- Accra, Ghana
Weren’t the parachutes made of silk? Hence the rush to their hands on it.
Ming the Merciless
There is no mercy
- Location
- Inside my skull
It’s why underwear used to blow up like a parachute in strong winds
twentysix by twentyfive
Clinging on tightly
- Location
- Over the Hill
eeeee - them were the good old days, waking up with a bomb in your bed and free parachutes. Things have gone to hell in a hand cart since then.
biggs682
Touch it up and ride it
- Location
- Northamptonshire
Ming the Merciless
There is no mercy
- Location
- Inside my skull
That’s where the phrase Sex Bomb comes from.
presta
Guru
.
Hunslet was the home of John Fowler steam engines and the Hunslet Engine Company, my father grew up a stone's throw away in Holbeck.
DRM
Guru
- Location
- West Yorks
Hunslet engine co still has a building left, now part of Schneider Electric, the railway lines still cross the road and go towards Middleton Railway, another old building is the factory of Braime & Co that a lot of you will have seen inside, as it featured in the Peaky Blinders, quite a lot in series one & two,
DRM
Guru
- Location
- West Yorks
They’re still going, now they’re Hunslet Hawks, at the new South Leeds Stadium, next door to John Charles sports centre, it was sad that Eddie Waring kept going too long, trying to commentate whilst coping with dementia, I believe he wound up at the old Menston Mental Hospital, by all accounts a dreadful place.
DRM
Guru
- Location
- West Yorks
These old WW2 stories are very soon going to be out of living memory, I think it’s great when you take the time to listen to them, iirc ROF Barnbow there was either grass, or the roof was painted green, and imitation cows were placed on the roof, some one had the job of moving them so that the Germans would think it was a field of cows from above
