| Gatley
- The End of the Line
By Peter Boden 7. THE ENEMY. Click on images to enlarge When I
was about three years old, my family moved from 167, Gatley Road,
to a bungalow
8, South Drive (Illus. 10). The first real
fright of my life was caused by a frisky, yapping dog which had
found a gap in our hedge. I presume that he thought I was
a toy-boy to be chased and nipped. It was a sneaky low-down “sausage”
dog, a dachshund!
I recall running, as through treacle, towards the safety of the kitchen door. It was closed, and the door handle was out of my reach. I screamed for a long while. Then the door was opened by my beloved mother who applied a swift foot to the rear end of our neighbour’s canine. It disappeared in a cloud of yelps. The neighbours never spoke to us again. This was no problem as they were foreigners. During the 1939-45 War a solitary bomb screamed down from the sky, and destroyed a nearby bungalow at 94, Styal Road. I used to wonder if Heinrich, our sometime neighbour, was the pilot. It seemed a strange coincidence that on the 24th December 1944, during an attack of V1 Doodlebugs on Manchester, one landed in Parr’s Wood just north of Gatley. Another V1 landed about one mile from me when I was living in Oldham, Lancashire. Was Heinrich involved in sending those two on their way? I should hate
to think that I was responsible for the terrible devastation because
of that “sausage” dog in South Drive, Gatley in 1928. If
Heinrich had controlled the guidance systems, his aim was not as good
as my mother’s boot aimed at his dog’s hindquarters! |
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