Barrage Balloons over Chorlton

Barrage Balloons over Chorlton may not be much of an original way to start a story; after all I guess if you are of a certain age and lived here during the 1940s you may well remember the balloon on the Rec.

But for the rest of us born after the last great world war it is news to know that here in Chorlton we had our own barrage balloon and no doubt people will supply me with tales of other balloons in the area.

This one however is special for me. I first got told the story by my old friend who showed me the concrete base it was tethered to, now long since gone. John and Margaret lived on Reeves Road, and he was a constant fund of stories. Like the time during an air raid when Margaret went into labour and John wheeled her in a pram to the hospital with the ever constant fear of falling bombs. Despite later being confined to a wheelchair Margaret pushed by John would collect elderflowers from the meadows which they made into wine.

Later after the concrete base had been dug up I did begin to question my memory and without evidence wondered if I had made the whole thing up. Then Alan Brown provided a picture of the balloon which he thinks had been taken by one of the men operating it.

They were a common enough sight over all our cities and the stories and images of the ones which broke free to float across the sky provided comic relief despite the danger they presented.

Seeing them close up in a context which is all too familiar makes these balloons all the more real. I guess along with their comic element they must have provided some sense of protection. But as I wrote on earlier occasions the bomber still got through, people did die, and children were evacuated.

http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2011/12/blitz-stories.html
http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2011/12/blitz-stories-part-two.html

But laying aside the horrors of that conflict, Alan’s picture is a vivid reminder of a dark time.

Picture; barrage balloon on the Rec from the collection of Alan Brown