'I shouted out to Mabel - It's the Germans!'

With the exception of our maid [Ida Coates] we were all in bed at the time of the first shot. I was just sitting up preparatory to getting up, and from the window at the foot of my bed I could see the flames in the sky as the shots raced across. The first one sounded like an extremely loud peal of thunder, but at the second I shouted out to Mabel, [sister] “It’s the Germans!”

We all dressed more quickly than we ever did in our lives, into our best clothes. We thought that if we had to leave home and everything, we would at least be as well clad as possible.

The whole bombardment only lasted for about half an hour, from 8.00am until just after 8.30am, with a short interval in between, during which the ships turned round. It is estimated that 250 shots were fired from either broadside, and we did the best thing which was to be done under the circumstances, that is to keep in the lowest room at the side of the house which was furthest from the sea, our kitchen; but oh for a cellar cool! They are certainly the safest place during either a naval bombardment or an air-raid.

All of you will readily believe that that half an hour was in some respects an eternity of time. Awful and paralysing. Besides the crashing of the bursting shells, masonry falling, glass breaking, was to be heard the frightened screams of women and children, as men, women and children, lots of them only half-dressed, rushed past our windows making for the country. What was most paralysing was the knowledge that one could do nothing for anyone else, could not save a child or shield it, could not run away. It is far worse to be in the streets than in a house. The only thing to do was to wait as patiently and cheerfully as possible.

Later, when the bombardment had ceased, mother and Mabel went to see what had really happened and to see what harm had been done, and how our relatives here had come through it. We were thankful to escape with only the windows of the two sitting-rooms and one bedroom broken, but round about us on all sides there has been an immense amount of damage done to property and a number of people killed.

The South Cliff has also suffered a heavy toll, but considering the very great destruction of property, there has been a miraculously small number of lives lost. Indeed, in a number of ways Scarborough has been blessed. For one thing, if the raid had been an hour later whole classes of children, including Mabel’s, would have been killed practically wholesale. Two of the schools have been rather badly hit. Mabel went down to hers later in the day and besides counting seven holes in the roof of her classroom, collected several bits of shell from the debris. Then too, after having had very wet weather, the day of the bombardment and the one following were beautifully fine.

To me it was simply wonderful how very quickly the news that the Germans had gone spread abroad, people returning home from the surrounding villages by 10.00am, having walked both out and home.

Whilst mother and Mabel had gone to seek out friends, I looked after Audrey and baby (in her pram) just around about the door, and saw scores, hundreds of people returning home, half-dressed, tear-stained, cold and frightened. Women who had none, helping to carry other women’s children, some carrying pet dogs and cats.

I was drinking a cup of tea outside and offered some to an old woman who had taken someone’s stray pussy with her; she was dressed, but had no outdoor things on and was so cold and frightened that she could hardly hold the cup.

One man on Seamer Road was driving with a load of manure; he instantly tipped up his cart and loaded up with children walking out to Seamer. It was truly a time of ‘doing unto others as you would they should do unto you’, regardless of age, sex, riches or their lack.

I saw one woman half leading a young fellow down Mill Street; he looked dirty, as though he had been working amongst wall plaster or lime and was almost crying. When she came back alone a few minutes later I asked her what had been the matter. He was the young man from Wykeham Street [Christopher Bennett] whose mother, brother, nephew, and another little boy had been killed, whilst his father had also been hurt; he himself fell from his bedroom into the kitchen when their house was struck.

Everyone spoke to everyone else whether they were acquainted or not and it was most exhilarating and reviving to see and hear of the preservation of friends and relatives, one after another. Indeed, the whole day abounded in superlatives.

We did not know if it was going to be an invasion. That is what I dreaded personally, the being killed by shell or falling masonry does not seem to me half so terrible as having the men themselves in our town.

Although £600 was taken at the railway on the memorable Wednesday, hundreds and hundreds of people travelled without tickets, some of them meeting and succeeding in stopping the trains further out of town. The inhabitants in the towns and villages were extremely good to the people who reached them, giving away lots of hot tea, soup, coffee etc.

One of the most wonderful things was the rapid and cool way in which practically a few minutes after the firing ceased the corporation men, plumbers, glaziers, joiners, shop men and women, and private people were sweeping, brushing and generally clearing away the debris, boarding up or glazing windows, mending roofs, building up chimney stacks and pulling down, by means of long lengths of rope, loose pieces of masonry from the tops of houses.

A gentleman on the South Cliff [John Henry Turner], under whose bedroom window his maid [Margaret Briggs] was killed whilst taking the letters from the postman [Alfred Beal], a shell bursting between them and killing both, who said that Scarborough was no place for women at present, has been keenly criticised both by ministers and others. You see a great majority of the women and children must stay, and nearly all the men are obliged to do so. Some women who have relatives inland have left their children with them, and have come back to share things with their husbands.

The basement of Westborough Wesleyan Chapel (our chapel) has been taken as the 2nd Military Naval Base Hospital. It is used for east coast camps. A number of people wounded in the bombardment were also taken there. The members of the local Red Cross and St John Ambulance nursing corps take alternate duty there. I am a member of the latter, but have not been to nurse there yet, having only just got my uniform. We started to work for our exams as soon as war broke out. The students in Darlington College are all working for the Red Cross exams. In fact almost every other woman here is taking up either one or the other.

When some mines were shot the other day by the minesweepers, Mabel and her friend were on the pier; they ran for dear life at the first shot; scores of other people ran also. The people on the Foreshore ran out of their houses with large parcels. They have had orders to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Ever since the bombardment there have been a number of minesweepers constantly at work, several of which have been struck, with several lives lost.