Pointing was done after the last Google Map of the street when the stack looked normal except for missing lead flashing on the neighbors side. Flashing re installation must have resulted in part of the stack being dismantled and then re bricked to give the current appearance.
Thanks for that pic of 68 Fairfax Avenue Chazz. I believe that was the house we lived in when I was born and narrowly avoided catastrophe from a German bomb in April 1941. Strange how small the margin can be between a long and happy life and instant oblivion 80 years ago. I was blessed. Thank You Lord !!
If I get the chance, I'll see if I can find the link, but there are some cracking stories about the diligence (or perhaps insanity) of the ARP people that wandered around detailing the damage, often at great risk to themselves.
My late mother and g'parents had a similar close call - an early morning air-raid caught them in two minds whether to run for the neighbourhood shelter or stay in the passage between the two houses, grandad risked the passageway as best bet; that call turned out fortunate as the neighbourhood shelter took a direct hit, killing everyone in it. As an aside, due to the suddenness of the air-raid very few of the neighbourhood had time to get to the shelter, thus preventing a real disaster.
Not sure if this correct, or where I heard, read it, but it makes sense. They knew the aircraft and therefore how many bombs they carried. After the raid, the ARP went out assessing the damage. Say, an aircraft dropped six bombs, there should be six equally spaced signs of damage or big holes in the ground. A gap in the line would indicate an unexploded bomb that needed finding and making safe.
It also mentions in the link posted that on occasions returning German bombers would randomly drop unused bombs in the Hull area before returning to Germany.
I remember the bommies on De Grey Street and Melbourne Street. They were still there when we moved to Hull on January 1st 1962. Melbourne's lasted a long time. We used to play on it. I never realised at the time that a bommy was actually a bomb site. You didn't think anything of it. They were just open spaces to us as kids. Garages were eventually built on Melbourne.
At the age of about nine we had the Melly Bommy Olympics Lobbing the half bring was a good event. There was no shortage of half bricks, even almost twenty years after the war.
My two older brothers were born down Raglan St. my old man could apparently slip out the back way and be in lambton club in twenty paces!!
Here is one which gives a 90% figure. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-humber-13286574 During the war my father in law was a dock electrician who was also on call at night to attend bombed sites and render the area safe during rescue attempts. He had a car and a home telephone and was given petrol coupons. In his street of 10 council houses next to Marfleet station, each had its own shelter in the back garden. The nearest bombs hit Fenners which was about 150 metres away near to King George Dock. The houses were only subjected to one machine gun attack with about 4 hit in the front with negligible damage. Presumably they would have been classified as 'damaged'.
My late father lived on Preston Road as a child in the war and said that after the night when he was in bed when the roof was blown off they slept in the shelter every night. As a child I remember there being a line of holes in the house wall that I could just fit my little finger into which were apparently the last rounds of a shot down plane.
I think all of us who grew up in the 50's & 60's have these stories; I grew up on Holderness Road, our street (Beeton St) had loads of gaps and boarded up houses caused by bomb damage, as had all the streets around us; as we got almost to our teens and ventured further afield towards the docks and town all these bomb damaged warehouses etc became the best playgrounds and pigeon hunting places.
My Dad was just a kid during WW2 and lived on North Hull Est. He talked about his experiences many times and one of the things he described so well, was when the family house was flattened. His Dad, was away at war, so it must have been my Gran's idea to just get under a table during air raids, even though there was a shelter in the garden. One night though, a next door neighbour knocked and just said he had a bad feeling about tonight and they should all (a family of five) get in it. I have a lot to thank that old man for, because that night the house took a direct hit. Everyone in the shelter (what were those shelters called?), survived and Dad was soon evacuated to a place called Foxholes. Now about 15 years ago, my missus took an interest in the World wars and started borrowing library books on the subject. She came across a book showing photographic evidence of the damage caused in Hull and a section in there was pictures of North Hull Est. She passed it over to me and I browsed.... Suddenly there was it was. My Dad's family house, completely flattened. Dad had told me how unusual it was for a house to be completely demolished, but for the roof to stay intact and I knew it had to be. Of course we showed him that picture and you should have seen his reaction, it was so emotional. He even pointed out his all time favourite chip shop in the background, which had also taken a big hit. War, huh! What is it good for???
