Blow Up Tanks

A Memory of Royston.

I was born in Royston in 1949, some four years after the war. The thing about me I have a very good memory of thing that had occurred within my childhood days, some of which, like everyone else would like to forget. I recall that when I was roughly three years of age, I was to go out of the front door and and amble my way into the fifty acre field, which was some half a mile walk from where I lived on Midland Road. The fifty acre field was somewhat a waste ground which overlooked the Monkton Coking Plant. I had ventured the whole of that distance all by myself. There within the field were strange looking objects, of which I was too young to comprehend in my mind to what they were. For many years to come, my mind had filed all the details and had stored them up. Then one day in the 1960's I recall the events of the day. During the war, the Monkton chemical coke factory was considered as a vital part in the making of Coke and chemicals to provide smelting coke for Sheffield, and also to make by-products such as petrol and Benzine. The problem was that England did not have enough equipment nor manpower, to defend half its factories against bomber attack. So what they did to try and fool the enemy; huge rubber inflatables would be made, which when blown up by diesel powered compressors would in almost exact detail look like real anti aircraft guns and tanks. One or two old men would stay on site and would start up the compressors and within seconds they would inflate. Now this what I had seen, was a memory of the past when I was but three years of age. Can anyone within Royston confirm with me that there were such things left over from the war effort and that they were not removed until the late fifties? As there are many memories: I recall my mam and dad who were born in 1904-1906. My mother recalls when she was 8 years old, in Royston in the pitch black of night. Word had gone through the whole village of an air bomb attack, and that knowing that Zepplins had been reported many of the people living in nearby streets to that of Jubilee Terrace, blacked out and then ran into the fields and placed themselves within the hedge groves. Minutes later the drowning sound of a Zepplin was to fly directly over where everyone was crouched. Mother recalls that there was a moment of fear, when a listening device had been lowered from the aircraft, it was less then five feet from where they stood or crouched. One noise would have been enough to have a bomb dropped from the basket. Lucky for them it went by and was more interested in finding other targets

---

---