Hall and Heppenstall Family

John William Hall was born in 1919 and had gone to sea since 1933. On one trip, he had been told he was going on the Malta Convoys but ended up on the Arctic Convoys to Russia instead. "Of course, they'd all turned up with a summer gear to go to Malta. So they were having to go around beg, borrow or steal any bit of clothing and he said it was the coldest he ever been in his life on the Russian convoy."

One of the ships he was on was torpedoed and they had to abandon ship; luckily everyone was rescued. John was mainly aboard Atlantic Convoys during the war but also a Russian Convoy and a Malta Convoy.

Ronald Joseph Heppenstall "could have had a reserved occupation because he was delivery driver for a bakery, which was owned by my grandfather" but instead he enlisted. He first served in the Northumberland Fusiliers and later the Highland Fusiliers. "He was in a gun emplacement on the road to Arnhem and he got shelled and the whole emplacement blown up. So he died then after going through the whole war". His name is in the Edinburgh Castle memory book and is listed on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Margaret Heppenstall took over the delivery of the bread when she was sixteen. You did not need a license to drive in those days. She kept a war diary of all the bombing in South Shields she writes:
"On Friday the 7th of June, 1940 at five to 12 Friday at night, the air raid sirens went. I was drawing and I heard bells ringing. Mam woke me up and told me to get dressed and we had to go downstairs into the shelter".

"Friday, the 20th of June 1940. Air raid siren went off at half 11 Friday. We got up and dressed and went downstairs in five minutes when we heard the planes. Then a bomb was dropped, followed shortly by others. We sat in the hole. It was awful, dark. There was six lots of planes came over within the space of 10 minutes and every one dropped a bomb about 20 altogether. Four dropped un-exploded in a field by Horsey Hill Estate. All clear went up half past two Saturday morning. We sat up drinking tea till five past three and went to bed till 10 to four air raid alarm went again we got up, but this was only lasted 10 minutes."

Margaret said, "she felt a bit guilty about the war because apart from losing her brother at the end, she'd had a pretty good war." As a young single woman, there were lots of soldiers camped close by paying her attention.

Margaret's father grew vegetables in their garden and, because he ran a bakery, there was no shortage of food. They would exchange their bread with other local businessmen; so, they were not short of anything, even having spare fuel coupons.

Audio and transcript attached.