MIKE Scanlon's comment ("Fiery reception for crafty intruder", Weekender, 8/6), that personal memories of the strafing of Newcastle in June 1942 are almost gone is of course correct. Login or signup to continue reading But I have a kind of recycled recollection. Late on the evening of 7 June 2002 my mother rang me and asked, "Do you recall what were you doing on this night, 60 years ago?".
I answered, "No Mum, I was only three years old at the time". She explained "you were under the bed with me and your brother Ross, in our home at Waratah, protecting ourselves as the Japanese bombed Newcastle". Mum was petrified with fear that night.
Dad was on the dog watch (shift midnight to 8.00 am) at the BHP Steelworks and she knew that the steelworks were the probable target. As the years pass and relentless warfare continues to inflict devastation, death, devastation, and misery on people across the world, my second-hand memory is a fleeting clue to how fearful life in a war zone might be.
On a lighter note, as I was born six days after the war started, Mum reckoned that my impending arrival was a cause of World War II. That's quite a burden, but thankfully we were born tough in those days. I WAS interested to read Peter Sansom's comparison of Zurich and Amsterdam with Newcastle ("Has our transport system improved? Not to me", Letters 7/6).
This is an unfair comparison, Mr Sansom. Zurich's urban area has a population of 1.8 million, Amsterdam has 1.
4 million. Newcastle has a populati.
