Doreen Jameson: Wartime Memories of South Shields

Doreen Jameson was born in 1934 and was five when the war started. She remembers when the air raids sirens started at her home in Leighton Street, South Shields. She would go to the shelter with her "pixie hat" to keep her warm. An older boy used to play the piano until the "all clear" siren went.

Her mother would not go in the shelter and one time a policemen came to the door forcing her to go to the shelter as all the front windows of the house had been blown out by the bomb blast!

Her air raid shelter was a wash house in the back yard with a concrete roof. Air raids were regular in South Shields. (249 in total, source Amy Flagg)

She remembers the main road to the beach had concrete blocks across it called "tank traps" to prevent the Germans advancing.

A German pilot parachuted out of his plane and was trapped in telephone wires other kids were very excited about this. (February 15th 1941, source Amy Flagg)

She remembers her school having an air raid shelter in the basement, barrage balloons on the local football pitches (the Dragon), the Home Guard practising with wooden rifles and having to carry her gas mask in a cardboard box.

She could have been evacuated, but she was not. She does not know why they were not evacuated.