The raiders came at night and my father watched Manchester burn.
He was a young lad and his dad had taken him up to Healey Stones in Rochdale, 800 feet above sea level, from where they saw the city being consumed twelve miles to the south west.
With a faraway look in his eyes, as he fought for the memories, my dad recalled: “There was an angry glow over the city and you could see the sudden flashes of high explosive detonations. I think there was cloud cover and the scene played out between the city and the clouds with the clouds reflecting the glow. There were searchlights sweeping the sky. The odd thing was that it was happening in silence, the distance prevented any of the noise reaching us I suppose. All we could hear was the moorland wind. It felt unreal, like a film or some sort of moving tableau. I was boy and it was sort of mesmerising.”
He paused before adding: "Well, there was one noise. I remember my father cursing the Germans."
He was a young lad and his dad had taken him up to Healey Stones in Rochdale, 800 feet above sea level, from where they saw the city being consumed twelve miles to the south west.
With a faraway look in his eyes, as he fought for the memories, my dad recalled: “There was an angry glow over the city and you could see the sudden flashes of high explosive detonations. I think there was cloud cover and the scene played out between the city and the clouds with the clouds reflecting the glow. There were searchlights sweeping the sky. The odd thing was that it was happening in silence, the distance prevented any of the noise reaching us I suppose. All we could hear was the moorland wind. It felt unreal, like a film or some sort of moving tableau. I was boy and it was sort of mesmerising.”
He paused before adding: "Well, there was one noise. I remember my father cursing the Germans."
This was during Manchester’s Christmas blitz of 1940.
On 22/23 December 121 aircraft of Luftflotte 2, and 149 aircraft of Luftflotte 3, both based in northern France, dropped 272 tons of high explosive and 1,032 canisters of incendiary bombs on Greater Manchester. On 23/24 December 171 aircraft of Luftflotte 3 dropped another 195 tons of high explosive and 893 incendiaries.
At least 684 people died (other sources put the figure closer to a thousand) and many more were injured. Over thirty acres of city centre Manchester were destroyed (some reports say ninety). Salford and Stretford were ravaged. At one point there were 1,300 major blazes, some combining, as at Piccadilly, to create a fire storm. Buildings were demolished to prevent the fire spreading.
It might have felt unreal to a child on the moors but it was very real elsewhere. Here are a couple of examples.
On a tour I did a decade or so ago one guest recalled how her mother had grown up in Newton Heath in a large and happy family home of five adults and children. One of the high explosive bombs on the 23 December killed the whole family apart from her mum.
On the same night a single land mine blasted away homes in Stanley Road, Old Trafford, killing thirty people. Ten people died at number 28 Stanley Road. This was the home of Patrick McLaughlin, aged 45, his 43-year-old wife Mary, and her four children Catherine, 19, William, 18, Patricia, 16, and James, who was seven years old. They died along with another family who were visiting them, George Laybourne, 51, his wife Jane, 50, and their children Catherine, 16, and George, 15. Naming them makes them more real, gives them individuality.
On 22/23 December 121 aircraft of Luftflotte 2, and 149 aircraft of Luftflotte 3, both based in northern France, dropped 272 tons of high explosive and 1,032 canisters of incendiary bombs on Greater Manchester. On 23/24 December 171 aircraft of Luftflotte 3 dropped another 195 tons of high explosive and 893 incendiaries.
At least 684 people died (other sources put the figure closer to a thousand) and many more were injured. Over thirty acres of city centre Manchester were destroyed (some reports say ninety). Salford and Stretford were ravaged. At one point there were 1,300 major blazes, some combining, as at Piccadilly, to create a fire storm. Buildings were demolished to prevent the fire spreading.
It might have felt unreal to a child on the moors but it was very real elsewhere. Here are a couple of examples.
On a tour I did a decade or so ago one guest recalled how her mother had grown up in Newton Heath in a large and happy family home of five adults and children. One of the high explosive bombs on the 23 December killed the whole family apart from her mum.
On the same night a single land mine blasted away homes in Stanley Road, Old Trafford, killing thirty people. Ten people died at number 28 Stanley Road. This was the home of Patrick McLaughlin, aged 45, his 43-year-old wife Mary, and her four children Catherine, 19, William, 18, Patricia, 16, and James, who was seven years old. They died along with another family who were visiting them, George Laybourne, 51, his wife Jane, 50, and their children Catherine, 16, and George, 15. Naming them makes them more real, gives them individuality.
Cannon Street in the city centre
As was the case after the 1996 IRA bomb, people were stoical not panicky. Following the first night of bombing most people still came into the city centre to work.
One witness Frank Walsh recalled: "I was sent out to deliver a parcel to a small printers situated in the warren of side streets just behind John Ryland’s Library on Deansgate. I started out making my way down Canon Street which was strewn with debris, broken glass and fire hoses, with fire tenders still spraying water on the burning and smouldering shells of buildings. Several side streets were wrecked and impassable where some of the buildings had been roped off. Large coping stones from the tops of building were lying everywhere.
"My route was often changed and I had to make many diversions as my journey progressed very slowly because of stopping to talk to firemen and other groups of pedestrians standing outside of what used to be their place of employment, now completely demolished. The smell of burning was intense. Buildings were collapsing all around and still on fire. Those that were not on fire were left as piles of smoking and smouldering rubble."
One witness Frank Walsh recalled: "I was sent out to deliver a parcel to a small printers situated in the warren of side streets just behind John Ryland’s Library on Deansgate. I started out making my way down Canon Street which was strewn with debris, broken glass and fire hoses, with fire tenders still spraying water on the burning and smouldering shells of buildings. Several side streets were wrecked and impassable where some of the buildings had been roped off. Large coping stones from the tops of building were lying everywhere.
"My route was often changed and I had to make many diversions as my journey progressed very slowly because of stopping to talk to firemen and other groups of pedestrians standing outside of what used to be their place of employment, now completely demolished. The smell of burning was intense. Buildings were collapsing all around and still on fire. Those that were not on fire were left as piles of smoking and smouldering rubble."
The magnificent but ruined Assize Courts
The city lost major monuments.
The biggest loss across all the various war time raids was the Assize Courts at Strangeways, an 1864 masterpiece by Alfred Waterhouse, architect of Manchester Town Hall.
The Market Square area, a reminder of the city’s small town past, was flattened. Presently occupied by Harvey Nichols, Selfridges and Marks and Spencer, this contained a tangle of Georgian, Victorian and earlier buildings built on a low scale, which was unlike any other central area. I imagine today it would have been filled with interesting little retailers, with a York-like atmosphere, maybe a couple of cracking restaurants.
Other buildings lost or severely damaged included the Cathedral, the Free Trade Hall, Victoria Buildings, Cross Street Chapel, the Royal Exchange, and Smithfield Market.
The biggest loss across all the various war time raids was the Assize Courts at Strangeways, an 1864 masterpiece by Alfred Waterhouse, architect of Manchester Town Hall.
The Market Square area, a reminder of the city’s small town past, was flattened. Presently occupied by Harvey Nichols, Selfridges and Marks and Spencer, this contained a tangle of Georgian, Victorian and earlier buildings built on a low scale, which was unlike any other central area. I imagine today it would have been filled with interesting little retailers, with a York-like atmosphere, maybe a couple of cracking restaurants.
Other buildings lost or severely damaged included the Cathedral, the Free Trade Hall, Victoria Buildings, Cross Street Chapel, the Royal Exchange, and Smithfield Market.
Victoria Buildings with the Cathedral behind which was also badly damaged
The famous ‘Blitz spirit’ was captured by one the finest poets to have graced Manchester and who lies in Southern Cemetery.
She wasn’t Mancunian, she wasn’t even British and her homeland, Poland, would suffer immeasurably more than these islands.
This was Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska. She was born in Cracow in 1891 and became known for her sensual poetry and plays. These often courted controversy. Her graphic art was good too, almost William Blake-esque (see below). She was born into a family of artists with a circle of friends that included painters, writers and intellectuals. A fiercely passionate woman her work explores love, lust and politics. She was married three times.
Any men reading this might try to measure themselves against Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska’s challenge in the poem Whoever wants me to love him.
Two years before World War II she wrote a play A Woman of Wonder which was virulently anti-Nazi and mocked a Hitler-like dictator. When the Germans invaded it was inevitable she would have to flee the country. With her third husband Stefan Jasnorzewski she settled in the North West of England. Stefan fought in the Battle of Britain as an RAF pilot and had a distinguished war career.
She wasn’t Mancunian, she wasn’t even British and her homeland, Poland, would suffer immeasurably more than these islands.
This was Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska. She was born in Cracow in 1891 and became known for her sensual poetry and plays. These often courted controversy. Her graphic art was good too, almost William Blake-esque (see below). She was born into a family of artists with a circle of friends that included painters, writers and intellectuals. A fiercely passionate woman her work explores love, lust and politics. She was married three times.
Any men reading this might try to measure themselves against Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska’s challenge in the poem Whoever wants me to love him.
Two years before World War II she wrote a play A Woman of Wonder which was virulently anti-Nazi and mocked a Hitler-like dictator. When the Germans invaded it was inevitable she would have to flee the country. With her third husband Stefan Jasnorzewski she settled in the North West of England. Stefan fought in the Battle of Britain as an RAF pilot and had a distinguished war career.
Main picture and here: Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska
British stoicism for Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska was summed up by a cup of tea. This sounds like a cliché but these two translated poems are anything but clichéd. The first refers to the merciless history of her homeland the second is a tribute to human courage.
To the bombed, the homeless, the wounded...
Who will weep for you? Not John and not Mary.
Neither Percy nor William. Not Gladys - nor Sybil
Hardened by the cold and tough as the seagulls.
But a sad woman from Krakow will. She was born next to Wawel castle,
In a country where we were taught to cry our eyes out by the birches,
By the robins in the park, by Chopin, by black cherries.
From a land with a culture of tears, a land of melancholy...
I raise a toast to you with a cup of tea,
I serve you with my grief– my country’s natural resource.
The Wartime Niobe
Alice, the Manchester Niobe, lost her
Entire family, survives alone amidst the rubble
Confused - as the Earth herself would be confused,
Confused and astonished, fazed and hapless,
To see the sudden absence of the sun, moon, planets
Swept from the sky by one brief and horrific tremor...
But this Niobe is no model for sculptors
Because as she strains not to upset or frighten the others
She holds back her gesture of despair and tries to smile,
And she rubs at her face with all her might
To hide the emotion betrayed by her pallor,
And from the hands of her nice friendly neighbours, in silence,
She accepts a cup of merciful tea...
Niobe in Greek mythology is the woman whose children were killed by the Gods and became a symbol of solitude and loss.
Maria didn’t long survive the war. She died of cancer in Manchester after several years of illness and was buried here. That was in July 1945, two months after the war in Europe was over. Despite all the hell Poland had gone through Maria's country remained repressed, rule transferring from Berlin to Moscow. Realpolitik underpinned this betrayal by the West of an ally.
To the bombed, the homeless, the wounded...
Who will weep for you? Not John and not Mary.
Neither Percy nor William. Not Gladys - nor Sybil
Hardened by the cold and tough as the seagulls.
But a sad woman from Krakow will. She was born next to Wawel castle,
In a country where we were taught to cry our eyes out by the birches,
By the robins in the park, by Chopin, by black cherries.
From a land with a culture of tears, a land of melancholy...
I raise a toast to you with a cup of tea,
I serve you with my grief– my country’s natural resource.
The Wartime Niobe
Alice, the Manchester Niobe, lost her
Entire family, survives alone amidst the rubble
Confused - as the Earth herself would be confused,
Confused and astonished, fazed and hapless,
To see the sudden absence of the sun, moon, planets
Swept from the sky by one brief and horrific tremor...
But this Niobe is no model for sculptors
Because as she strains not to upset or frighten the others
She holds back her gesture of despair and tries to smile,
And she rubs at her face with all her might
To hide the emotion betrayed by her pallor,
And from the hands of her nice friendly neighbours, in silence,
She accepts a cup of merciful tea...
Niobe in Greek mythology is the woman whose children were killed by the Gods and became a symbol of solitude and loss.
Maria didn’t long survive the war. She died of cancer in Manchester after several years of illness and was buried here. That was in July 1945, two months after the war in Europe was over. Despite all the hell Poland had gone through Maria's country remained repressed, rule transferring from Berlin to Moscow. Realpolitik underpinned this betrayal by the West of an ally.
Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska might not be well known in Manchester but she’s remembered in Poland.
Agnieszka Cybulska who lives in the city told me: “In Poland she is considered to be one of the most iconic poets of the interwar period, whose works (such as the poems Love, Nike, Ophelia, The Old Woman, Time, the Lame Tailor) often appear in Polish literature classes in secondary schools. Although there is no single mandatory text on school reading lists, her lyric, poetry and dramas (e.g. “Baba-Dziwo”) are discussed in the context of interwar literature, with analysis focusing on her distinctive style and recurring motifs.
“Perhaps she would have been even more famous in her home country if she had stayed in Poland although with the Nazis and then the Communists in power that may have been impossible in terms of creative freedom or worse. It is widely known she died outside Poland but I do not think too many people know she is buried in Manchester. I didn't.”
Maria and her husband now have a fine stone in Southern Cemetery erected by the Union of Polish Writers and the UK Polish community. Her poems remain a poignant memory of the events of December 1940 in Manchester when there was a 'sudden absence of the sun, moon, planet, swept from the sky by one brief and horrific tremor...'. They are a tribute to the way ordinary people faced extraordinary circumstances.
You can read more about this remarkable women here.
I'll be talking about the blitz and Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska on the Bombed and Besieged tours this year at 11am Sunday 18 January, 6pm Thursday 19 March (this finishes in a pub) and 10.30am Saturday 12 December. You can book here.
I also be talking about her on my Southern Cemetery tour on 10am Saturday 4 April 2026, 10am Saturday 5 September 2026. You can book here.
Agnieszka Cybulska who lives in the city told me: “In Poland she is considered to be one of the most iconic poets of the interwar period, whose works (such as the poems Love, Nike, Ophelia, The Old Woman, Time, the Lame Tailor) often appear in Polish literature classes in secondary schools. Although there is no single mandatory text on school reading lists, her lyric, poetry and dramas (e.g. “Baba-Dziwo”) are discussed in the context of interwar literature, with analysis focusing on her distinctive style and recurring motifs.
“Perhaps she would have been even more famous in her home country if she had stayed in Poland although with the Nazis and then the Communists in power that may have been impossible in terms of creative freedom or worse. It is widely known she died outside Poland but I do not think too many people know she is buried in Manchester. I didn't.”
Maria and her husband now have a fine stone in Southern Cemetery erected by the Union of Polish Writers and the UK Polish community. Her poems remain a poignant memory of the events of December 1940 in Manchester when there was a 'sudden absence of the sun, moon, planet, swept from the sky by one brief and horrific tremor...'. They are a tribute to the way ordinary people faced extraordinary circumstances.
You can read more about this remarkable women here.
I'll be talking about the blitz and Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska on the Bombed and Besieged tours this year at 11am Sunday 18 January, 6pm Thursday 19 March (this finishes in a pub) and 10.30am Saturday 12 December. You can book here.
I also be talking about her on my Southern Cemetery tour on 10am Saturday 4 April 2026, 10am Saturday 5 September 2026. You can book here.
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