Cecilia Brennan, known to her family as Cissie, was the eldest daughter of Michael Brennan and Sarah Kelly. She was born in Jarrow in 1890 and educated at St. Anthony's in Sunderland before going on to train as a teacher at St. Mary's College in Fenham. She taught in St. Bede's Catholic schools in Jarrow, and served as Head of the Infants School in Grant Street in the 1930's. She never married, and lived at home with her parents and two unmarried sisters Mildred and Rosalie. She was a prolific letter writer, and during WW2 she corresponded regularly with her sister Frances Hanratty who was living in Spennymoor. The following are excerpts from letters written by her to Frances and others during the period 1939 - 1945. They constitute a unique history of the war (albeit with some gaps) as seen from the perspective of a middle-aged woman living in Jarrow.
As a small child I learned about the bombing raids on Jarrow, and in the early 1950s one could still see evidence of the destruction they had caused. I always believed however (in my naivety) that folk living away from the town centre would have heard only a distant rumble as bombs fell on the districts nearer the river, and that it might have been quite an exciting experience to live through. Cissie's letters, written from 74 Bede Burn Road, dispel any such delusions, and her simple language conveys both her fear of the bombers and her horror at their aftermath, sentiments that were no doubt shared by many of the people of Jarrow at the time. They also show that some things never change, and that even the blitz failed to curb the excesses of officious school inspectors.
My thanks are due to Jerome Hanratty, Frances's son, who compiled these excerpts and who has kindly allowed me to publish them to a wider audience.
74 Bede Burn Road
July 27th 1939
My Dear Franc,
.....the evacuation1 romp started last Friday and I have been nearly demented all this week ..... I had to make two registers of evacuees, in duplicate with an alphabetical index. You can imagine what this has meant for me in the last week of the school year. Then on top of that Father Cronin said we had to keep an enquiry bureau at the school for the bone-heads who couldn't understand the forms or fill them in. The result of this has been a continual stream of loquacious mothers giving their candid opinion of Hitler and wasting my time with confidential news of the family and their reasons for letting their children go or, alternatively, not letting them go. Everyday a fresh lot of orders would come from the Town Clerk, some of them contradicting previous orders. We had to make a banner in the school colours - green and yellow. Then we have to get linen labels ready with each kid's name and address on (the label has to be tied round the kid's neck with tape). I have spent this week rushing around like one possessed ..... McPeake3 was as cross as a bear this morning - even his equable temperament proved unequal to the pandemonium .....
74 Bede Burn Road
December 13th 1939
Dear Millie,
Received your letter OK this morning. It was no joke having to change five times to get to back-of-beyond Frosterley. You must be frozen stiff there, for we are nearly petrified in Jarrow ..... your landlady is evidently a Yorkshire woman if she serves pudding first - 'tis an old Yorkshire custom.
Yesterday we had Evans and that woman Thomas1 in the junior school. At about 3pm the siren went and they had to run to the shelters like everyone else. The alert lasted about 25 minutes and we heard distant gun fire. When Thomas emerged from the shelter (where the kids were packed like sardines) she played war with McPeake because he allowed the boys to yell popular songs. "The teachers should have organised shelter games," she said. This has to be done in the semi darkness where one can hardly make out the faces of the packed lines of kids. The woman is a lunatic.....
We had a bad night last night with heavy gun fire, but it didn't last long; no siren was sounded. We heard guns that we had never heard before. Eilis2 as usual climbed on our laps and Mona2 stared menacingly into the kitchen.
74 Bede Burn Road
January 18th 1940
My dear Franc,
..... I was just emerging from St. Bede's at about 10:20 am when I heard the firing and then the air battle started. The turnings and twistings of the planes were marvellous, before Jerry made off.....
Our two soldiers1 will be en route for France this weekend. They have received their new equipment and some of the officers have gone already. The leave they had at Christmas was their draft leave after all. I feel awful about them going out in this horrible weather. They are such 'bits of bairns' too! Frank just turned 19.
Another spot of bad news is that Rosalie has to go out and teach those blasted evacuees in Crook. She is determined to travel there from Jarrow every day and return home at night no matter what it costs. There are only 83 evacuees left in Crook (we brought 286)2. Our only hope is that this remnant will speedily return home; most of them however belong to the category of unwanted children and will probably stay for the duration.....
74 Bede Burn Road
May 30th 1940
My dear Franc,
..... We have had no word from the lads since we got a field card from Lens on May 16th - since then, silence! They are with the B.E.F. in that cursed trap on the northern front. God knows what they are going through and if they will ever fight their way out. Maggie1 is terribly worried of course and Peggy2is nearly demented. I wrote to Terry3 but the news will be sadly out of date when he gets it..... On top of that we have the worry of evacuation. Any minute we may have to go. I am hoping that my contingent will be sent to Spennymoor where of course I could have something approaching normality. I would like to come over on Saturday (if convenient for you) to get some fresh air and forget this nightmare existence.....
74 Bede Burn Road
Wed, July 3rd
My dear Franc,
..... the first we heard of it was three terrible explosions from a considerable distance off. These must have been the bombs on Newcastle quayside where a big fire was started. Then the air raid syren went and we hid under the stairs hearing occasional crashes. After an interval the all-clear signal went and we emerged from a cupboard. About ten minutes later there was a terrific crash and the whole house shook. I felt as if the place was descending on top of me. What actually happened was that a Jerry plane was hiding in the clouds and after the all-clear went he glided down and released a whole salvo of bombs (about 4 or 6) which fell on poor unfortunate Princess Street in Jarrow, the Dunn Street school and Stanley Street1. He was aiming at the petrol tanks of course
The dreadful thing was that the people were all out in the street (seeing that the all-clear had sounded) and that accounts for the appalling number of casualties. Up to now there are 11 dead and over a hundred wounded. All the dead are Catholics. One family has father, mother and three children dead. Big Jack Coyne of Princess Street has a wound in his head near the eye and his wife, she is my father's cousin, is in Harton in a state of collapse. St Bede's church got a terrible shaking, glass was broken and benches and kneelers were smothered in dust..... Father McElhannon and Father Cronin were anointing the wounded as they were being dug out. There is a big gap in the middle of Princess Street and some of the dead are unrecognisable for they were practically blown to pieces.....
We went into school this morning at 9 am and some of the poor little souls, white-faced and tired-looking, were there, but we sent them home. Our school in Harold Street is a hospital and it was full of patients and nurses..... A boy died in the hospital in our school this morning...... Father Conlon opened the Loaf-tin2 as a haven of refuge for the homeless people. It is pitiful that it is the poorest section of the people that have lost everything, their homes and their bits of furniture..... Kathleen Casey's house in High Street was badly damaged and one of her children wounded with glass. Bridgie Coyne's house hasn't a pane of glass in it, but they are all safe, thank God.....
74 Bede Burn Road
Sept 4th, 1940
My dear Franc,
..... we have lost count of the raids. We have been up every single night and I could fill a book with yarns about our nightly adventures..... A week past Saturday, Hebburn was bombed and two people killed and a lot wounded. Last Saturday they dropped screaming bombs and the house shook and windows rattled; they dropped at 'The Greyhound' in Hedworth and broke a big water main from Sunderland. The result was that Monkton and Primrose had no water for nearly two days and ours was severely restricted.
On August 15th I was caught in the street coming from school. Fortunately I was able to run with Gertie Brown1 to their house but I nearly passed out after the effort. The guns that day were dreadful; it was like a pandemonium and the fearful noise of scores of planes. Several were brought down in the district.
Vera2 is nursing one of the wounded Germans who was brought down at North Shields. He is a surly brute of a fellow; at first he wouldn't touch any food in case they were poisoning him. Now he has a few words of English and is constantly telling Vera "Hitler good man". She feels like pushing his face in.....
The night before last the whole armoury of Tyneside went into action at about 10.15pm without siren or anything. The noise was ear-splitting and we could hear the shrapnel stotting off the roof. A big lump went 'plop' into the water tank in the yard. The next day the kids arrived at school all carrying lumps of shrapnel and the yard and tennis courts at Belsfield were strewn with it.
I was worrying about Terry and was pleased to hear he had reached the United States safely. It is a pity he didn't claim kinship with the Kerrigans. I wonder if they belong to the black Kerrigans of Glananaan in Mayo. They are a numerous clan and Grandma (Kerrigan) had umpteen brothers..... The lads (Wilf and Frank) are still in Dorset near Portland. They are bombed day and night and see innumerable 'dogfights'.
I had a letter from Boston from Auntie Mary. Poor soul, she listens to six news bulletins a day and is convinced that all her relations are living like moles in a hole.....
74 Bede Burn Road
Sunday, Jan 26th 1941
My dear Franc,
We have had peace perfect peace since Xmas up to today. About a fortnight ago a lone German plane made an attack at dusk on the aircraft carrier at the naval yard. Then he swooped down on Hebburn and machine gunned the streets; the people were lying about in the streets. A few were wounded, I believe, but none badly. I ordered a stirrup pump yesterday. How we are going to climb into the loft to operate it I don't know.
As far as I know Wilf and Frank are still in Devon. They may be retained here in case friend Adolf starts an invasion; ex-Dunkirk men are regarded as seasoned veterans and probably would be wasted on the Eyeties in Libya. I hope they will keep an adequate army here for there is no doubt about Adolf having a pop at invasion sometime this Spring. Mick1 is still a civilian - he has to register next Saturday, and Pop forbids any joining up beforehand.....
74 Bede Burn Road
April 4th, 1941
My dear Franc,
..... we have had Wilf home for four days leave last week and Frank arrived for his leave this week. Wilf is rather thin and white faced after his time in bed with the flu and a poisoned leg, but Frank is two stone heavier and looks the picture of health. Their leave was called embarkation leave but neither of them has any idea where they are going. I hope they are not destined for Yugoslavia. Wilf was longing to see Terry1 when we told him there was a chance they might be home together. What a difference all those lads will see in one another when they meet again.....
..... the shortage of fags is hitting me badly; there doesn't seem to be a fag in Jarrow. Father Sands was completely out of fags and correspondingly miserable; his poison is Players and he usually disdains my Craven A. We are doing penance nowadays without meaning to.
74 Bede Burn Road
April 10th, 1941
My dear Nora1,
Poor Jarrow got a terrific hammering last night. It started at 11.25 pm and for about four solid hours there was the crash of bombs and guns without a lull; then things eased up and we would have quiet spells of about ten minutes each and then hell would break loose again; at ten to five in the morning the row ceased. What a night! I never thought we would live till morning.
A H.E. bomb demolished part of the Tube works alongside the park - near enough to hit us in all conscience - breaking hundreds of windows and bringing down ceilings in Beaumont Terrace and Wansbeck Road. Grant Street school2 got a direct hit from H.E., but the saddest news of all is that poor Father McDonnell collapsed and died in the middle of the blitz. A huge land mine exploded in Sheldon Street3 bringing down the whole of one side and it was this terrible destruction that finished him4. Over thirty dead people have been taken from the ruins already; many were trapped in their shelters with tons of debris from the houses on top of them. It was pitiful to see the people grubbing about in their wrecked houses bringing out their poor bits of furniture mostly smashed or damaged. I went to see how uncle Michael Joyce and Peggy were - they live in Clyde Street next to Sheldon Street. The windows are out and the ceilings down but they are safe, thank God. Winnie Joyce - living in Beech Street - also had a narrow escape from fire. A bomb destroyed a garage behind Beech Street but the firemen got the petrol out in time.
One bomb that fell nearly blew Rod and me out of the cupboard. This one made a a big crater near the Old Church. We have no gas, for the gas works got a direct hit and most of the town is without water. Water carts are doling out water, with the strict injunction that it must be boiled before using..... The railway is badly damaged and there are no trains at all. South Shields station is a wreck and the Queens Theatre is levelled to the ground.....
Mrs Hall had a bad time; the gas works bomb blew out her windows and she has no gas or water..... Father Rice, our curate, was putting out incendiaries near Bede Burn school when he heard the noise of a descending bomb; he jumped for cover under a wall and found himself lying next to an unexploded bomb.
When we were crouching in the cupboard under the stairs we heard the warden's whistles announcing incendiaries. I nearly passed away at the thought of having to go upstairs and look for them; we just stayed put and prayed.....
Hundreds of incendiaries were coming down like rain over Primrose and Monkton and the people were running about shovelling garden earth on to them. The house next door to Wilf's5 in Dilston Terrace was on fire but they put it out. Harry Brennan6 was running around all night putting out incendiaries..... There are burnt out incendiaries lying at intervals along Bede Burn Road.
I never before heard such a long slow whistle as those H.E. bombs give when they are descending; we just braced ourselves in the cupboard when we heard it and waited for the end. I resigned myself to a sticky end at least six times last night..... God grant that those devils will not return tonight.
74 Bede Burn Road
Oct 3rd, 1941
My dear Franc,
..... I haven't had a chance to write and tell you of the two hammerings we have had from Jeremiah this week..... The chief sufferers have been North and South Shields. Tuesday night's raid made hay of Shields Market Place and High Shields station - about 28 or 30 people killed I believe.
When we were crouching in our shelter1 listening to the thundering barrage, two awful whistles sounded and then two fearful crashes; I thought Wansbeck Road was levelled but by God's mercy the two landed in fields - one near the coke ovens and another on Lawson's farm near the golf course. The new pub at Simonside has a huge bomb crater in the back garden and the back of the house wrecked.
Last night's do was much worse than Tuesday's. St Bede's junior school2 (South Shields) got a direct hit, Laygate school is also wrecked, Croftons, Woolworths and Black's Regal are done for and Binns is badly damaged. The patrons of Black's Regal rushed to the public shelter in the market place and shortly afterwards the shelter got a direct hit. I was told there were 80 killed in there alone3..... One of the jerries shot down three barrage balloons. He got the three in line and pumped tracer bullets into them.
We haven't got a door on our shelter yet and it was pretty chilly these two nights especially as we had last night's session before supper. To add to our troubles we discovered yesterday that Fred Giles next door is cherishing a rat among all the rubbish in his back yard. We have seen it nipping up and down the laburnum tree hand over hand like a monkey. We were terrified to go in to our door-less shelter in the dark in case that rat was there before us, but rat or no rat we had to run into it in the end.
74 Bede Burn Road
Jan 1st, 1942
My dear Franc,
.....the planes were cruising only roof-high and the machine gun fire was deafening. Wilf was in his shelter with the family but Harry was snooping outside the door when he called his dad out. Wilf said he saw a Heinkel a few hundred feet up and it seemed to be about to crash on York Avenue. Instead it dropped its load of bombs on the bit of water-logged waste ground near the fever hospital in front of Primrose Terrace. It went off over Shields but it came down in the sea later. Imagine the devastation it would have caused if it had crashed on Primrose with all its bombs.....
I was hoping there would be some news from the lads but nothing arrived..... Clare's1 husband, Owen Williams2, is in hospital. His plane was brought down and the other two members of his crew were killed. I don't know if he is badly hurt but he was able to write himself so he can't be too bad. Thank God he isn't a prisoner. I haven't heard the details yet but I believe Clare is all worked up about it. I was talking to Eddie Bryce this morning; he looks grand and is ready for anything. He returns to Portland Bill on Sunday.....
74 Bede Burn Road
June 4th, 1942
My dear Nora,
We are having a worrying time just now over Wilf and Frank. Churchill's statement on Tuesday revealed that their Division (the 50th) is in the thick of the fighting in Libya, holding the line around Gazala, and also mentioned their infantry regiment, the D.L.I. Auntie Maggie fondly thought they were safe in Palestine or Iraq.....
74 Bede Burn Road
June 15th, 1942
My dear Franc,
..... I am in no holiday humour.
We have been tormented by the bad conduct of the A.F.S. men billeted in Giles's house next door. The noise and commotion coming from that house after midnight has to be heard to be believed. Besides that, there is an amateur banjo player, a very poor performer on the fiddle, and about half-a-dozen men who practise step-dancing on the bare floor - all this after midnight. Wilf had a row with the chief Fire Officer - the two barged each other for about twenty minutes - and the men have been worse since then. In despair I have written to Ellen Wilkinson about it. She is the chief panjadrum of the fire service I believe.....
74 Bede Burn Road
July 2nd, 1942
My dear Franc,
..... we are having a rotten time in connection with this "Holidays at Home" idea, as the Board of Education has recently suggested that the teachers attend school in the holidays to "entertain" the children. Each school has to do one night of folk dancing to amuse the citizens of Jarrow....
74 Bede Burn Road
July 9th, 1942
My dear Franc,
..... word came from the War Office this morning that Wilf has been wounded - they don't say if it is a bad wound or not. It happened on June 15th, which would be after that defeat at Knightsbridge..... My heart goes out to poor little Frank, who is still in the fighting, and he will be broken hearted at being parted from Wilf. Wilf (the father) had qualms about telling Maggie. When he came to our house this morning with the War Office letter in his hand my heart missed a beat. I shall let you know any further news.
Have you heard about Arthur English1 being missing? He is a Lieutenant Commander in the navy. His wife and child are still in Malta.
74 Bede Burn Road
November 29th, 1942
My dear Franc,
This has been a hectic week. Our H.M.I.1 (a lady-lunatic named Miss Pountney) walked in on Wednesday and she has had Burke and McPeake and myself in a turmoil all the week. She has a fund of half-baked ideas (ask Charlie2 what he thinks of a proposal to teach Arithmetic by means of games of Snap and Snakes and Ladders) and she told McPeake that she and Miss Thomas (the Head H.M.I.) are convinced that all the schools in the North are 50 years behind the schools in London. She talked to me steadily for two hours about the teaching of English and when I tried to break in once or twice to tell her we had been doing those things for years she held up her hand and said "Let me finish!"
She is an absolute funniosity, especially in clothes. You never saw such a vision. She is a great disciple of 'Freddy Firewood's Fuel Flashes' and 'Kitchen Fronts'3. We have to stress all these things. I'm sure she looked disapprovingly at my room fire and table lamp. What her soul delights in is to see long rows of kids at a dinner table all eating the same dinner and nobody going home; a discordant note for her was the fact the teachers did not sit down beside the children and eat the same dinner off the same tin plate with the same lead (not cutting) knife and fork. She is an absolute Hun.
We had heard about her and Thomas stirring up strife all over East Durham, and the time can't be far distant when they will both have nervous breakdowns and be 'removed' elsewhere - in fact I would say Pountney's breakdown has already arrived. She had an argument with McPeake about religion and said she didn't believe churches were necessary - God reveals himself to each individual soul she says. But that's enough of that imbecile!
Young Frances Xavier Brennan4 arrived last Tuesday - a fine chubby boy, and Peggy is A1. She went into Danesfield5 early on Monday and young Francis appeared on Tuesday before dinner. Mildred has been kept off school to look after the house and the bairns are going to the dinner centre.....
No word from young Wilf yet but we are expecting a cable now that the chase after Rommel has slowed down, Aren't things going splendidly! Please God, this is the beginning of the end.....
74 Bede Burn Road
March 14th, 1943
My dear Franc,
I expect you have heard about the hammerings we got here on Thursday night and Friday night. The barrage was deafening and the noise of Jerry planes in the middle of it was paralysing. Poor Primrose got the bombs again but no one was killed there thank God. Three houses on Haughton Crescent and some in Haggerston Tce were blazing for a couple of hours after the all-clear went. The 'Greyhound' pub was burned down and some people were killed there. But Boldon Colliery got the whole brunt of it ..... At one time the glare of phosphorus bombs shooting out splashes of burning material (anti-personnel bombs I think they are called) filled the sky with a lurid yellow light. I honestly thought we were doomed..... In the middle of the worst bout of gunfire we suddenly heard some boys' voices howling and crying from the back lane. They were poor little boys brigade kids who had run out from the Church Hall near the park to try and get home and had lost their nerve - no wonder, poor mites. We thought they had been injured, but McPeake (our local warden) soon calmed them down with the famous Teacher's voice and led them to the shelters on Bede Burn Road.....
Michael1 has been ill with pleurisy but our information has come via Madeleine2 and young Shanks girl at Sunderland. I am worried about him and would love to go and see him but I cannot go in the evenings now that raids have started. He must be recovering or Peggy would have let us know.
PS - Wilf is well (DG), airgraph received last week. Frank is getting his mail now but no parcels yet3.
74 Bede Burn Road
March 28th, 1943
My dear Franc,
Our new maid, Bessie, has been here a fortnight, and it is bliss having that intolerable burden lifted off us. She is a thorough cleaner and has got the house into good order already. her cooking is pretty devastating though. We had ground rice last Friday that tasted like cement....... But Bessie is honest and reliable and we can put up with a lot worse cookery rather than return to the house of bondage we have just escaped from.....
Harry is expecting to have to join up after Easter and may finally pass out of college this term. Wilf's letters are few and far between and most of them are dated Dec and Jan. He is certainly at the Mareth Line. Frank is in a good camp according to the 'Prisoner of War' - a newspaper that Maggie gets. He is getting letters but no parcels so far. There must be about 2000 cigarettes en route to him at present and a Red Cross parcel went to him last week.
We had a bad raid here on Wed night; it lasted more than two hours (rather unusually long nowadays) and a most devastating barrage was put up. The place was strewn with lumps of shrapnel next morning. Sunderland got an awful hammering the previous weekend.....
We are having our 'Wings for Victory' week in Jarrow and we are hoping to gather £200,000 - what a hope! There was a big parade of all the services yesterday through the town and brother marched at the head of the A.T.C. he is a full Flight Lieutenant now and looked very smart..... We have heard nothing of Michael so he must be alright.
74 Bede Burn Road
May 8th, 1945
My dear Franc,
I have been delaying writing because I thought from day to day we would get news of Frankie, but so far Maggie has heard nothing. Even her invincible cheerfulness is slightly dimmed. It is about a fortnight since Leipzig was captured and his Stalag 4G is just outside it..... You will be sorry to hear that George Finlay ('Kipper' Finlay to Terry and the boys) was killed last week. He was in a corvette doing escort duty. I saw Mary Finlay today and she was broken-hearted amid all the jubilation.....
Wilf was at home on a short leave and we saw him twice. He stayed indoors all the time after rising at mid-day. He strongly suspects he is destined for the Far East for the course he is on appears to be a preparation for a commission in the Artillery. However the course doesn't end till early August and a lot can happen before then1.....
We are without Bessie now. She gave in her notice last week as her old mother is now bedridden and she is staying at home to nurse her. She took a tearful farewell of the dogs.....