How a fortuitous set of events saved a Sheffield woman from an awful fate on night of the Blitz

Pat Davey was just 15-months-old at the time of the Blitz on Thursday, December 12, 1940.

She has no personal recollection of it but can speak of the events of that fateful night due to the memories shared by her family.

“I don’t remember it personally, but I apparently certainly had a very interesting Blitz,” said Pat.

At the time of the Blitz, Pat’s mother, Muriel Santhouse, was serving with the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, and her father, Bob Santhouse, was a career soldier who had been serving for a number of years before the start of the war.

Bob's company were based in Manchester awaiting deployment, and so Muriel took the opportunity to spend some time with him before he left.

This meant that Pat was left with her grandmother, Holly Millin.

Holly lived in Norton Lees, but took Pat over to Shiregreen so they could stay with Pat’s godmother, Ethel Seward.

This proved lucky because on the first night of the Blitz, the German Luffwaffe started their bomb run over Norton lees.

“Two houses on Hollythorpe Rise were demolished on the first night of the blitz,” recalls Pat.

The Germans started bombing from Norton Lees, through Heeley, along the Moor and through to the east end of the city which were Sheffield’s industrial areas.

Looking after Pat, was again very fortuitous for Holly, who was a good whist card player and played for London Mart in Fitzalan Square - which was known to everyone as the Marples Hotel.

Thursday was their night to play, and if she had not been looking Pat she would have been in Marples to play whist, which sadly took a direct hit.

Numerous members of the public, who had taken refuge in the hotel’s wine vaults, were tragically killed in the attack; and while the exact number of fatalities is still not known, at least 70 people lost their lives.

When Pat’s mother, Muriel, returned to Sheffield on the train, she had no idea whether her family were safe.

Muriel was forced to alight from Wadsley Bridge train station, such was the destruction in the city centre.

From there, she had to make her way to Shiregreen, and to get there she had to pass through the Wicker, and negotiate the mass-destruction that had been caused in the area.

This included climbing over destroyed trams.

Muriel found her return to Sheffield so traumatic that she soon moved the family to lodgings in Manchester, but they had returned to Sheffield by the time Pat started school.

Speaking about her school memories, Pat said: “I can remember at school being taught about the words peace and piece, and coming home and asking my mom what the different words meant. I can remember her saying: ‘One is like a piece of cake and the other one is when we’re not at war’.

“And I can remember saying to her quite clearly: ‘What’s it like to not be at war?

“For people of our age group war was the natural thing we never knew anything else.”

Although Pat never served in the armed forces she always kept a close association with the armed forces, as a member of The Royal British Legion for 65 years.