It’s 75 years since the two nights of terror that saw Salford bombed by German forces: what has become known as the Salford Christmas Blitz.
197 people were killed and over 800 injured in the Christmas air raids over Salford.
As the Second World War raged into its second year, the skies over the city turned bright lit by the thousands of fires started by incendiary devices dropped by the Luftwaffe.
The death and destruction seemed indiscriminate and nowhere was safe: churches, homes and factories were all hit in the bombing air raids.
In total in Salford 8,000 houses, 15 schools, and a staggering 86 places of worship were damaged or destroyed.
Six members of staff, including the Medical Superintendent and his wife would be killed when the former Hope Hospital on Eccles Old Road suffered a direct hit.
The marks of the Salford Christmas Blitz are embedded in the fabric of the city.
On 22 December 1940 a temporary air-raid shelter at the Fumigation Station on Mode Wheel Road was destroyed, killing five members of the same family: 32-year-olds William and Evelyn Brown and their three young children Rosemary, 8, Robert, 7 and four-year-old William Jnr.
And the sites which were flattened in the Blitz would remain empty for many years: local children may remember playing on these so-called “crofts” without knowing of the death and destruction these spots foretold.
You can still see the shrapnel marks on the headstones at Weaste Cemetery, one of many areas which was hit.
This was a depressingly familiar tale.
Familes who huddled together in darkness, terrified at the whistling bombs falling and exploding overhead were hurt the most.
On West Wynford Street the Barlow family lost 65-year-old Charles, 50-year-old Matilda, 31-year-old Winfred and 17-year-old Henry.
Entire sections of our sister city across the river in Manchester would disappear overnight, as these incredible images from the Imperial War Museum North show.
Ordsall suffered badly mainly due to its proximity to Salford Docks and the Manchester Ship Canal – both were big targets for the Axis enemy pilots who wanted to cripple the country’s industrial heartlands.
The Railway public house on Wilburn Street was destroyed claiming the lives of John McGreevey, 40, Ann McGreevey, 40, Mary Cavanagh, 32, and 10-year-old Thomas Cavanagh.
The Regent Road police station was bombed, injuring Inspector John Salthouse, 43 and Police Constable Franlyn Wilkinson. Both would later die from their injuries at Salford Royal Hospital.
On 23 December 1940 21 people on the same road at Bigland Street in Ordsall were killed.
Entire families were wiped out, like the Moorhouse family: father George Moorhouse, 43 and his 42-year-old wife Annie Moorhouse, along with their children Annie, 14, George, 11 and 7-year-old Elsie.
Also killed on Bigland Street were 18-month-old baby Jean Travis, teenagers Annie Darby, 19, Florence Sharp, 17, John Singleton 19, Martha Sylvester, 17, and Elizabeth Willoughby 17, along with 47-year-old Harold Rogerson, 49-year-old James Steele and 28-year-old Hilda Travis.
Families were killed in Nora Street, Walnut Street, West Bank Steet, Eccles Old Road, Oxford Street, Stowell Street, Milton Avenue, Darwen Street to name but a few.
The Friends of Salford Cemeteries Trust remember the victims annually, at two events on the Sunday before Christmas, by laying wreaths at the Blitz Memorial Garden at Agecroft Cemetery, Swinton and at a graveside at Peel Green Cemetery, Eccles.
A memorial to the dead at Agecroft Cemetery, Langley Road
You can also learn about the effects of the Christmas Blitz on Second World War Salford and Manchester at Imperial War Museum North, who are holding daily talks between now and New Years Eve (except 24-26 December).
Every day from 3.30pm you can step into a festively decorated 1940s house to discover what life was like during Second World War Britain and learn about the impact of air raids on local citizens, including Roy Taylor who witnessed the dramatic effects of the Blitz alongside his grandparents in Salford.
