Local author Neil Anderson has been writing books on this part of Sheffield’s history for 15 years, with his most recent book ‘defiant voices- the blitz kids of Sheffield’ focusing on the stories of local children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sheffield as a city suffered 660 casualties and much of the city being flattened during the war, with the BBC referring to the events as ‘the forgotten blitz’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Anderson said “it became apparent that they weren’t just targeting the east end, there was hardly a suburb that wasn’t hit over those two nights, a third of the schools were hit. ‘[they were] targeting civilian life, civilian morale’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I was amazed that my dad wasn’t evacuated, non of his friends were evacuated, Sheffield had one of the lowest evacuation rates in the whole country. I just can’t imagine the thinking that you have a massive target at the end of the street, but your still here in the eye of the storm.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cost of war and its effect on civilians is the centre of the two year project to mark the 85th anniversary of the barrage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One Blitz survivor Don Johnson who was eight years old at the start of the blitz recalled one night, “My mother shoved us, me and my siblings, under the table and laid on top of us. She was very badly injured, she carried the scars for the rest of her life.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He described the scenes at Northern General hospital stating “All you could hear was the screams of the injured. That will carry me till the day I die.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Anderson said, “It wasn’t me who actually wrote it, I did the foreword but it’s the stories of the survivors, they are the legacy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Graham Walker, a 64 year old journalist hosting the book launch said “In terms of the younger generation you almost think this is history book stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“But when you look at what’s happening now in the Middle East, you think we are so far removed but we are not really.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We can’t forget yesterday because we have to try and change tomorrow.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Anderson said “The blitz shaped Sheffield, it shaped lives, it shaped families.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I don’t think we will ever finish [commemorating]. There’s still the Marples, the site of the biggest single loss of life, there’s still bodies under Fitzallen square.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n