EVACUATION TO INGLETON 1941 to 1945

My name is Brian Corbett and I was born in Liverpool, in the middle of an air raid, on 9 January 1941, which just happened to be the day that Lord Baden Powell died.

We lived in Wallasey and in the infamous 1941 May Blitz on Merseyside we were bombed out. We went to live with my maternal Grandparents in Eastham on the Cheshire bank of the River Mersey for a few months, but this was considered to be still within the high risk area for bombing raids.

As I was still a baby, the powers that be decided that my mother and I would have to be evacuated to the West Riding. My father was in the National Fire Service and had to stay on Merseyside for the duration, just coming up to Ingleton for occasional weekend passes. Our first rooms were in Burton in Lonsdale above one of the big arches, on the high street, which I notice are now filled in as modern airy rooms.

After a brief stay we moved to 129 New Village, Ingleton,, were we stayed until the end of the war. As I grew older I can recall many happy memories of those years. Mr Howson, our landlord, had a lovely Alsatian dog who used to let me ride on his back. I remember taking an enamel jug down to the Settle Road to fetch our milk supply for the day. Such was the frequency of military convoys passing on the main road. It was often some time before I returned home with the milk. I just had to stay and wave to the soldiers! I can also remember trucks going past with POW’s with big coloured marks on the back of their overalls.

We moved back to Wallasey in 1945 and much to my great delight, for all my young and early teen years, my maternal grandparents moved up from Eastham into 129 New Village, my Grandfather having retired from the BOC in Bootle. One of my earliest memories of staying with my grandparents was in early 1947. I remember waking up and looking out of the window. All the dry stone walls had gone; there were just long humps in the snow. It really was that deep!

My eldest sister Lyn and me were able to spend much of our summer holidays staying with Grandma and Grandpa Tyler in Ingleton, where we had lots of friends around New Village. In those days children had a lot more freedom and as long as we stayed well away from Gaping Ghyll, the moors were our playground. I still have a 2p ticket from the Waterfalls Walk. I can remember the next time we went, the man, in what was then a little shed, said "you’re locals you don’t have to pay".

There was a nut wood in a small disused quarry on the banks of the River Doe. I don’t think it was far upstream from the old swimming pool. Of course we played out Rupert Bear stories there.

In later life my wife and I took our own two sons and stayed in our caravan at Twisleton Hall. We witnessed the most amazing natural light show when, in the midst of a massive electric storm, over Ingleborough, the forked lightning was travelling horizontally from peak to peak, just as it was going dark.

Visiting Ingleton recently, for the first time in many years, inspired me to write these notes.

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