Emily Brooks was 12 at the time of the Wilkinson’s bombing. She went to Linskill School.
With her mother, sister and brother, she was a regular user of the basement air raid shelter.
The shelter warden, Mrs Lee was her aunt.
Emily remembers using the shelter almost every evening. It was a safe place to be, especially since her home on Church Street had no external or internal shelter.
She remembers the stone floor and the benches around the walls. She recalls it being cold. With her friends, she would wait for the shelter to open at 5.30pm.
They would gather at Tucker Crow’s sweet shop opposite the factory on George Street. Then, a quick dash over the road and entry to the shelter via a dark grey, heavy metal door.
Opening the door would turn off the internal light, closing it would turn the light on – a familiar precaution in the Black Out.
Emily thinks that the death of her older brother Harry saved the family from the Wilkinson’s bombing. She remembers that one night before the bombing, Mrs Lee told her mother, Ethel, that she had better go back home as there was a telegram for her. Ethel left the shelter with her children. Sadly, she discovered that her eldest son had been lost in the sinking of the Empire Brigade. The ship sank on the 19.10.1940. From that date the family never used Wilkinson’s shelter again. Ethel believed that with Harry gone it was pointless trying to make them safe and that they would take the risks that came. Shortly afterwards the family moved to Howdon Road.
The day after the Wilkinson’s bombing, Emily and her mother went back to the site of the factory. It was a scene of great activity; men and ARP workers pulling away the rubble and debris. Ethel had thought that perhaps her husband Jack, an ARP worker had been in the Shelter. Fortunately he had been on duty down in the harbour. Emily remembers talking with her aunt, Mrs Lee at the scene.. She can still see the grime and soot etched into the wrinkles of her ace…and her tiredness.
Emily lost one of her school friends in the bombing.