Priscilla Masters writes detective fiction set in Leek, so her books have added local interest.
I have just been reading her Wings Over The Watcher, which, just in passing, as a piece of local colour, mentions a tragedy from the hard winter of 1947, the crash of an RAF Halifax bomber over Grindon in the Staffordshire Moorlands just above the beautiful Manifold Valley whose cave was a regular destination for our Sunday picnics.
Its mission had been to drop vital supplies to villagers cut off by the snow. It surprises me that, as far as I know, I had never heard anything about it before.
All eight people on board (including two press photographers) were killed, on 13 February 1947.
When I went to The Times Archive to check the details I found some other very salutary news on the same page.
Many passenger train services were cancelled so that coal trains could be given absolute priority on the lines.
Street lights were blacked out except at junctions where there was heavy pedestrian traffic after dark.
Shops had their electricity supplies severely restricted. Only those providing vital commodities (food, dairy, dispensing chemists) could operate as normal. Important services, such as banks & boot & shoe shops, were allowed limited supplies. All other shops – including the big West End department stores – were allowed no electricity at all.
And – shock, horror - in Inner London the 7pm delivery of letters, together with the 7.30pm & 9pm collections were suspended until further notice.
And we think we have just had it very hard in 2010.
It is also salutary to compare the amount of press coverage of the accident at Grindon with that of the various 'tragedies' experienced this year. Just one brief report followed up next day with a list of the dead.
