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She was born on 17 Dec 1917 so was 21 when war started. She was born in 5 Gertrude St, Salford. There were 13 siblings but many died. Her dad had an arm shot off in the IWW and so he could do little work. He went to work in the docks and the other dockers helped him. The children were often hungry. An old woman in the street would sell soup 2d a jug and sometimes they had to take it on tick. She married 1937. She attended Mount Carmel School, which was Catholic. She used to run errands for people. Her first real job was in the mill where she worked all her life. She worked in the mill on Ordsall Lane. She married Richard Alan Hooley who came from a few streets away. He worked in the mill and that is where they met. She wrote a poem
鈥淢y name is Rose
A bit faded of course, I鈥檓 84 year old
but still in the fold.
I worked in the mill
It helped to pay the bills.
There I met my Al
A husband and a pal
He saw me through thick
He saw me through thin
Didn鈥檛 realise how much until I lost him
But memories are gold
And as I grow old
It helps me to see just how lucky I鈥檝e been鈥�

She has written 40 poems.

After marriage (his mother died giving birth) they went to live in the auntie鈥檚 parlour but the auntie would not let them into the parlour. They had to live in the house with the rest of them. The aunt kept giving them bills for food and for her husband鈥檚 suit etc.
In despair she pawned her wedding ring because she heard of a house coming empty. She walked to town to ask for it but he thought she was not married because she had no ring. He took pity and gave her a cup of tea and gave her the key to the house and her money back to get her ring from the pawn shop. They moved in with 4 orange boxes as a table and chairs and with a bed. They lived here (Gloucester Street ) when the war broke out. She had her first child in 1938.

The day war broke out she did not realise what it meant. When the first bombs came the shock was horrible. One old lady in the mill was crying because her granddaughter鈥檚 house was bombed and all that was found was an arm with a ring on the finger. When war broke out Rose was in hospital due to a pregnancy and they wanted to evacuate them. She wouldn鈥檛 go. She went back home and they had to board up windows and they couldn鈥檛 shine a light. A man would walk in front of the buses showing the way. Once she got a tram after she received her wages and he turned down the wrong street and ended up in the canal. No-one was hurt. They had to climb out.

There was a lot of bombing in their area. One fireman exclaimed that he thought the whole world was on fire. When the mill was bombed her husband was there as a fire fighter. The flames were about 60 feet high. Rose went up to see her sister who was in labour. On the sofa were her niece and 3 nephews (2 nephews escaped). Her mother was there and the midwife. Her sister was in pain and the midwife told her to go to Nellie next door to get a pot of tea. Nellie had no milk and she sent Rose down to the corner shop. The sirens were going. The shopkeeper and his wife were both killed. She got the milk and she saw the bomb drifting down. She started to run back up the street and then boom. She came round with a man tapping her face. She must have been blown across the street. Where the street had been were children running about, screaming, soldiers, a gun firing into the air. She tried to run to her sister鈥檚 but he knocked her out. She woke up in Regent Rd swimming baths which had been emptied of water. The dead were laid out and the wounded were lying about. It was chaos. She can鈥檛 remember getting home. Next day she and her husband went looking next day for the family. They went from hall to hall examining the dead. There were some horrible sights. They went to the house and found the family bible because she had lived in her sister鈥檚 parlour for a few months. She still has this bible. She saw a policeman outside and went over to ask him where her family (from West Bank St) had been taken. He fell on top of her dead. The bullets of the planes had pinned him to the wall dead.

She had to return to work because if you didn鈥檛 work you didn鈥檛 eat. Two Ds came for her to tell her they had found her family. They took her down Ordsall Lane to a hall and there she identified her sister. She had gone white. The baby was mangled and she did not know what it was. She identified her nephew Derek, whose face was untouched and her niece Elaine. She was as wide as she was long and her face was purple. Then Robert and Kenny were badly hurt. They found Mike 2 weeks later and the spade went through his head. They wouldn鈥檛 open the grave to put Mike with his mother but they buried him head to head. They didn鈥檛 find her mother for a few weeks. She had survived and was sent home. Her windows were out and the door off and her husband had tried to repair them. She ran round to her mother but she was badly burnt. She lasted a few weeks and then died. They were all buried in Agecroft Cemetery. Kenny who survived eventually died of throat cancer. A soldier helped her to identify the bodies even though he had lost his whole family. 185 people were killed in that bombing. She never found out what happened to the midwife because she didn鈥檛 know her name or what happened to Nellie. She didn鈥檛 know what had happened to Kenny or Robert until about 6 months later. His father was a long distance driver and wasn鈥檛 there. He remarried a woman who had lost her family in the same bombing.

The windows were blown out of Rose鈥檚 house also. Alan鈥檚 father鈥檚 house was damaged and they came to sleep with them for about 4-5 months. One day she took his dad up some tea and found him dead in bed.

She had a nervous breakdown after the bombing. She was taken to Salford Royal. The doctor got the nurse to take her up to the ward for the insane and told her she would end up there if she did not pull herself together. It did the trick. The nurse took her back to the ward and made her tea and started combing her hair. Her hair all came out and she was left completely bald. Little grew back. People were cruel at work. They called her baldy. She used to get upset at home. She eventually got a wig but it was horrible. They would snatch her wig off and she hit a few of them. The war did not end things. It continued after the war, with her having no hair. She has been in and out hospitals all her life and she has had a bladder transplant with a pigs bladder. She was in hospital 4 months. The workers in the mill did not show sympathy. The overlookers protected her a bit.

Rose was in the Card Room and contracted bysnossis, cotton dust on the lungs. She has a pension for life for it. She never got compensation for the bombing. She missed applying for it because she was in hospital. Work in the mill was hard. She walked 12 -14 miles every day. Worked in your bare feet it was so hot. Used to get cotton everywhere, in your hair and eyes. One overlooker lost an arm in the machines. There were cockroaches and rats. She worked on a rat run. She worked with the raw cotton. They would shout Ratoo and you had to get out of the way. She fell and grabbed the tail of one and it struggled and shed its skin. They saw dozens a day. They would clean the machinery whilst it was going. That was dangerous and the cockroaches were everywhere. You didn鈥檛 get the disease in the spinning room.

Those in the card room had to go to the hospital every 6 months. He would do something and you couldn鈥檛 see and you could feel the brush cleaning your eyeballs. Your eyeballs came out to be brushed! She was paid after she left school at 14 she received 2/4. When she had machines of her own she got over 12 shillings a week and her husband got about 18 shillings. When raids got bad they went outside and down a ramp. One day they watched a dogfight between a spitfire and a messerschmidt. She doesn鈥檛 know how they got through it.

They had entertainment, music while you work. One occasion. Joe Loss came and they had a singing competition. They persuaded Rose to take part. They dressed her up but her husband was annoyed at her showing a bare shoulder and he walked out. She was pushed on and she won the competition. She won 拢25. Her husband was annoyed and told her never to do that again. He said she looked like a hoar. The Irwell Valley did a book and Rose wrote poems and they won 拢1000. She has been on TV and on Radio. She has been to the War Museum and she has met Prince Philip. She started writing poetry at 84 and has written quite a lot. For the Church she wrote
鈥淚n this world that G-d Created
Why o lord is there so much hatred
A beautiful world with so much to gain
But when we look round we can fell only shame
With wars and unrest
Doing their best
To spoil the peace we should enjoy
And the love of our children who need our support
We hope that crime will disappear
We also hope that G-d will hear
If he blesses just a few
Then the age of miracles is not yet through.鈥�

She was born Catholic but never followed it up. She supports both churches. When she was little they had to go to Church. Even when had no money for food he gave to the nuns. She and her brother and sister went to Mass. Her brother felt sick and so he went out. This happened 3 times. The priest complained to her father. A few days later Harry had an attack and was on the floor vomiting. He was taken to Salford Royal. The sister told them to stop the priest visiting him because he always got distressed. Her father was furious but as he came out of the office he heard a scream and it was Harry with the priest. Harry got hold of his father and told him not to let him die because the priest had told him he would go to hell for missing Church. Her father hit the priest. The police took him to Regent Rd prison for 3 days and they were hungry. Another priest came. It was the Bishop and he apologised and he told them their father was coming home. The priest had been sent away and they should forgive him. He gave them 10 shilling to buy food. Her father took the children out of the Catholic School and sent them to a Protestant School and he never went back to Church.

Her house was damaged in the bombing raid but they stayed there. Regent Rd was badly damaged and people started taking the furniture from the shops a few days later. Trafford Rd and Ordsall was bombed. There were three mills and Richard Howarth found them work in the 2nd mill when their mill was hit. One day the overlooker called them to the office and the Ds were there. They said they were under arrest because they had been selling their clothing coupons. They received a warning. They changed sugar for sweets for the kids. She used to go to the cattle market and buy lips and lugs, cut the meat off and make a stew. They also bought corned beef. They used tinned milk. They used to have toast with marg or dripping. She saw a wedding dress in the pawn shop and she paid weekly for it for her wedding. She paid 7/6. The day before the wedding she realised the dress was back in the pawn shop because her mum had pawned it again. He gave her it for 6 shilling. When the car came for her wedding she wouldn鈥檛 get in until they cleaned it and put ribbons on it.

During the air raids they went into the entry and stayed their overnight. She had to be at work for 6am.She took her daughter with her because they had a nursery. They were worn out. Bombs all night then work. There was pavement above them in the entry. All of them would go out to the entry. Some went under the stairs. Once she was running from the house with Brenda in her arms and there was bullets fired at her. They were near the docks, the railways, ammunition and glass factories and the mills. When a bomb hit Trafford Road they were blown out of bed. She would rearrange the house now again and one time her husband walked in and out thinking he was in the wrong house. He once sat on the bed that wasn鈥檛 there.

They got Sunday papers once a week. There was a lad she worked with who lived at the bottom of the street. He went to war and he returned like a living skeleton. He had been a Japanese POW. He later died. She got a terrible shock. The Russians were as cruel as the Germans. Can鈥檛 understand how Germany can be in charge of the Common Market. Hitler was an evil pig. She couldn鈥檛 blame the Jews for hating the Germans after what they did to the Jews. She had a friend who married a German and she wouldn鈥檛 speak to her. When the priest came after her family were killed, she told him to go away. How could there be a God, who would allow it to happen? Everyone had large families, neighbours had 17, her mother 13, another family 15. She only had 2 children. She miscarried a boy. She was always in and out of hospital.

The day war ended they were crowding the streets. Some were jumping for joy, others were crying. Everyone brought food out to have a party in the street. The pub at the corner gave a pint free. She felt happiness and hatred. She still hates them. They attacked so many countries. They were so cruel when they didn鈥檛 need to be. The Russians also. A friend who was married to a Russian told her how the Russians raped girls after the war ended and cut off their breasts. She feels sometimes it is the end of the world, so much is happening e.g. the tsunami, the weather, famines鈥� In Salford you could hear the enemy aircraft flying over. Some nights worse than others. Everywhere they went there were houses down and windows boarded. Didn鈥檛 go out at night with blackout. Used to have a knocker up to get them up for work but he couldn鈥檛 see so they used to have to manage. Could see big guns running past firing at enemy aircraft. There was a barracks in Cross Lane.

Went to the pictures, to the cheapest. Been to the pictures whilst bombing raid. They all came out and ran home. There wasn鈥檛 a street where there were not houses down. Her brothers were evacuated to Blackpool and her mother went to visit and was shown lovely bedrooms. But they were made to carry luggage for visitors and they were made to sleep in the cellar. One of her brothers ran away and her mother found out and she brought them home. They were only in the end of the war.

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