We've been aware for many years that our house was destroyed in 1941. Apart from neighbours mentioning it when we first moved here from the Midlands in 1973, we got to know a bit more a year or so later when we had a garage built and needed to see the deeds to the house. Those deeds gave the clue to it's 1947 post-war rebuild, and not the 1934 date we had understood when we bought it. Having said that, looking back now, we might not have bought it had we known all there was to know at the time, but that's another matter. We did, and we're still here.

About 10 years ago, when we first had access to the web, I learnt on the Civilian War Dead Index that a lady next door to our house, at no 42, was killed by the same land mine that exploded over all our back gardens and left the massive crater in the photo below. The explosion completely destroyed the backs of this whole terraced row of 8 houses, right up to the 10-foot, and severely damaged those beyond, windows blown in, roofs blown off, etc. Finding no other mention on the Index for casualties in these houses led me to believe that, whatever the fate of the occupants of our particular house, they at least weren't killed.

I couldn't have been more wrong. Last year, we had the opportunity to get sight of the deeds again, and for a longer look this time before they were returned to the bank. The documents were amazing, from the first mortgage details, to the plan of the fields and land that that the builders bought to lay our plots out on. And there were the details of the first owners, back in 1934. A Mr & Mrs Cawthorn bought this house when still a builders site. Mr Cawthorn's occupation was given on the deeds as a 'railway guard'.

I went back to the Index on the web, and looked again ... and bless me if I didn't find them. They were listed as having died in James Reckitt Ave, but no mention of our number, both Mr and Mrs Cawthorn, aged 54 and 52 respectively, and their 18 year old daughter Audrey, all tragically killed on that same awful night, 18 July 1941. Another casualty, also listed on the Index, Mrs Elsie May Lowe who lived next door with her father, also died. A significant number of other Hull citizens lost their lives the same night. It was a heavy raid by any standards, and Hull all but set alight . . . not for the first time and nor the last.

We knew from older neighbours that all these houses had Anderson shelters at the back, but the Index only gave the Avenue as the place of death .. or where they were found once dead. So, it would seem they were blown there .. from the back garden. Just the front facades of the houses were left standing, with the complete backs blown off, and as the fatal landmine was recorded as having gone off at something past one-o'clock in the morning, it's fair to assume they were all in the air-raid shelter itself rather than their own beds. Records show there had been a warning, an alert, the sirens having gone off, and we know now that night was one of the heaviest raids. It was more than sobering, after all those years of living in this house, to realise that innocent folk, a whole family, had been killed here after all. What was more striking was that the collective local knowledge of this incident, one amongst many I'll grant, seemed to have been erased in less than 40 years.

Then, just a few weeks ago .. an amazing coincidence. Every morning, at 7am, and for the past 11 years, my work takes me to the local postal sorting office to collect our firm's mail. It's not opposite the Guildhall now, in that imposing white, stone building where wartime Hull folk would last remember it, though that's where I first used to collect it, some 10 years ago. Now, it's in a grubby little warehouse unit down St Peter's Lane, on the way down to what used to be called Sammy's Point and is now better known as The Deep.

In the foyer, if you can call it that, of this mean sorting office, is a double War Memorial to all those who served with the Post Office and were killed in Hull, or those who were called up, and killed in the forces in both wars. It used to be just inside the door in the old Post Office in Alfred Gelder Street opposite the Guildhall, in a large high-ceiling room, walnut panelled, and not unsimilar to the memorials often found in the hall of a public school. It was imposing and appropriate. That 'Post Office' is now a nightclub, snooker club, bar, and posh flats. But the postal authorities moved the memorials when the old premises closed and the smaller local offices opened in a single-story warehouse unit away from the city centre. They placed it just inside the public entrance, too small to be called a foyer, opposite the bank of private box numbers. A marble plinth stands nearby, on which there is a vase containing a bunch of old silk roses, dusty and dirty and unattended. They can't even be bothered to keep those clean.

And there, just a little down the list on the lower WW2 slabs, is the name A CAWTHORN [Miss] .... CIVILIAN. Below her, is the name L C L CAWTHORN ... RAF.

For years and years, I'd idly pondered those names on those lists, sometimes seeing what may be brothers, fathers and sons, etc .. and there was this girl's name, and what appeared to be a relation. L C L CAWTHORN may well have been a relation, perhaps an uncle, for his name appears on the Commonwealth War Graves site as being killed in 1944, aged 45. The names stared back at me for some moments before I realised the significance of it all. 7 o'clock in the morning is not my brightest time of the day. For now it seemed clear that the Cawthorn's unfortunate daughter, Audrey, worked for the Post Office, probably as a clerk or counter hand, secretary, etc, or even maybe as a postwoman.

It makes me wonder what we may find out next. They were clearly a hardworking family, dad a railwayman, a guard, mum a housewife and probably working part-time somewhere, daughter at the Post Office, proudly owning their own home and 'doing their bit'. But, just 6 or 7 years into living there, along comes the nasty Luftwaffe in a war not of theirs or their country's making, and blows them all to bits. Furthermore, they must have had a son, serving in the RAF and who survived, for it's his name, rank and signature that's again on the deeds in 1947 when the house, rebuilt with government compensation, was then sold to new owners. It's more than understandable that the son would want to be rid of it.

There were two or three other occupants before we came along in the 1970s. We've lived here for some 33 years, very happy and content and raised our own daughter and now have two grand-daughters. We'd often smiled when papering and decorating and commented on the fact that there doesn't appear to be a square corner in the place, putting that down to the hurried rebuild in 1946. The back garden path, and old garage base, relaid where the crater was, was built to a specification and thickness that it would have been possible to land a Lancaster on! The men who relaid the 10-foot in 1946 were quite possibly the same men engaged on building new RAF station runways some four years earlier, and used the same mix! Gardening always still turns up large chunks of glass, pottery, broken roof tiles, and once, a large rusty piece of metal which may well have been part of the casing from the original bomb was dug up when we relaid the kitchen floor. It might have been over 60 years ago, but this house still talks to us.

When I think what that first family went through, I'm even more grateful for what we have and have had. And grateful to those who fought to keep us this way. This was just one house, one house amongst several thousand others that were either destroyed, or so badly damaged that they were demolished, and some rebuilt as was ours. Many, many more had to have new roofs or tiles. The Cawthorns, and their neighbour, were just four out of some 1300 killed in total, many buried in mass graves in Chanterlands Avenue Cemetery .

There was nothing special about this particular house. It's not hard to buy a bomb-damaged house in Hull. Indeed, it would be harder to buy a pre-1939 house that wasn't damaged. What is a little different is that we now know what happened, or some of it. And we remember. And so will those who have the house after us, for we shall leave details behind us. James and Annie, and Audrey, even though we never knew them, will always be remembered.

That General Post Office war dead memorial, by rights, should be in a more fitting place, the names recorded, and if it must stay where it is, it should at least be cleaned and attended to. Our continental friends would never let such a thing get into such a disgusting state.

A separate page shows the memorial, all the names are fairly clear, along with a printout below that reproduces the names to make clear any ambiguities in the spelling, plus a key to some of the abbreviations. The page opens in a new window.

The GPO War Memorial for both World Wars

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