After the War

After the barbed wire was removed from the cliffs and beaches, we spent many days down on Burniston Rocks. This photo was taken with friends who lived throughout the war in Burniston gardens.

Wartime Burniston

There are many other memories of my wartime childhood in Burniston. One day I was playing in Burniston Gardens with other kids, and noticed that a convoy of tanks had arrived and stopped on the main road. Of course we went to take a close look at them, and a soldier lifted me up into the tank for a look around. Another day, I heard the drone of planes and looking up, I saw bombers towing gliders above the moors west of Burniston.

I can remember quite a few names of places on my way to school, and some of the kids I played with. I may not get the name spelling correct. Dickie Pease and his brother lived quite close, as did Stephen Megginson, John Turner, Ann Turner and Mary Turner. Tony Edwards lived in a house on the main road. Ann Grimwood's house was on the main road before the house behind the white railings, where Mr Tranmer lived. Mr Tranmer had many aerials erected around the house. He was an amateur radio operator-and maybe he was helping with the war effort.

On my way to school I passed the Three Jolly Sailors pub, and Sedman's butcher shop, the Harry Chou sawmill, and Milestones post office and shop. Emily Milestone delivered the post to us. All she had at the time was a bike. At the top of the hill was a tailors shop, but I cannot remember the owner's name. Then there was Woods garage, with the palm trees at the front, and further along after Tidd's corner, where the Bean family lived. Bob Sollits garage was next to where the Community Center is now. A little further along was Nellis's cobblers shop. On the other side of the road before I reached school, was a house where the owner ran a bakery – all I can remember was how good the rock buns were when I could afford one.

Producer Gas Trailer

Title: Producer gas unit
Scran ID: 000-000-704-406-C
Resource Rights Holder: Scottish Motor Museum Trust

War Time School Days

The house where I live throughout the war years was at one end of Burniston, and the school I attended was at the other end, near Cloughton. I started school when I was 5, and because it was wartime, had to carry a gas mask with me. Even at 5 years old I often walked the 1.5 miles to school and back. My mother put me in Clogs, which had wooden soles but leather uppers. Clogs were popular at the time.

I stayed for school dinners, which meant that we all had another mile walk to the Wesleyan Chapel opposite the war memorial, where dinner was cooked and served. We had to walk in single file with a teacher, Miss Richardson, keeping us in line. I think the headmaster was Mr Caton. I am not sure whether I have remembered the teachers names or spellings correctly. My only memory of the dinners was when Miss Richardson thumped me in the back, to try to make me eat the raw unpickled slices of beet-root.

One day walking to school after a night of air-raids, I reached the post office, and saw that a bomb had hit the house opposite. It was the house where farmer Ken Hurd lived. The end of the house was open, and the upper floor was sagging with a bed still there, but now in the open air. There was even a pair of trousers still hanging on the bed post. I never did know if anyone was injured in that raid.

There were times when I caught the bus to school. The buses were unusual because of the shortage of fuel, they towed a small coke-fired trailer. Built on the trailer was a coke burning unit which manufactured producer gas when air was drawn through the coke fire. The producer gas was piped to the bus and was used to run the bus. Of course the fumes were bad. At the bus stop in North Street, Scalby, where I went to get my hair cut by Mr Brooks, the leaves on the roadside trees turned brown from the fumes of the gas producing trailers.

Burniston Map

 

Rievaulx or Reivaulx

The house in Burniston Gardens named Reivaulx (Rievaulx) was built by my Dad in the 1930's. He made the Windows, doors and stairs. As I remember, it is a dormer type bungalow having two bedrooms upstairs, a bedroom, front room, living room, kitchen, and bathroom downstairs. We lived in the house from the mid 30's through the war years.

I was told that my mother and father chose the name because the original Rivis name was derived from Rievaulx. The story is that the locals living in the village of Rievaulx some 400 years ago, pronounced it “Rivis” or “Rivers”.

I have two copies of The Illustrated Guide To Britain, published for the AA. In the first book it mentions the pronunciation of Rievaulx, as “Rivers”, but the later edition it was changed to say that it is now pronounced “Reevo”. I never have discovered why it was changed.

Burniston Bombs

At the beginning of the second world war I lived with my Mother, Dad and sister, in a house called Rievaulx, (I always spell it Reivaulx) in Burniston Gardens. There was a reason for the house being called Reivaulx, which I will explain in a later post.

I didn't see much of my dad because he was working on the war effort at various aerodromes, and for the last three years of the war he was in Belgium and Germany, with the REME.

We were issued a steel air-raid shelter which was assembled in a spare bedroom. When the sirens sounded we scrambled into a makeshift bed on the floor of the steel cage. Before we had the shelter three of us would scramble into the tiny under-stairs cupboard. I remember the door knocker rattling from the vibration of the planes and the bombs.

Bombs did drop close to us, I remember one day after a lot of noise in the night, we walked to a field adjacent to our house to look in the huge crater, and I picked up quite a few bits of shrapnel.