Stockport Air Raid Shelter
Chestergate Hotel
Almost as soon as WWII began, the people of Manchester expected air raids to start immediately. However, they did not come. In August 1940, the Stockport Express newspaper was reporting that when residents heard the sirens, they took them as a joke...that was until the blitz hit London a month later and then people began taking the sirens more seriously.
Then in December 1940, 3 days before Christmas, about 300 German aircraft raided Manchester for the first time, dropping highly explosive bombs and incendiary devices. The sirens sounded and it's citizens scrambled for cover.
In Stockport alone, 10 high explosive bombs were dropped on Heaton Norris, Heaviley and Heaton Mersey. Thousands of incendiary bombs were dropped on Stockport but most were extinguished almost immediately.
Luckily for many of the citizens of Stockport and Manchester, an air raid shelter was built to accommodate about 4000 people. It was later extended to house a further 2500 people. It had beds, a medical clinic, kitchens and toilets but not showers.
The air raid shelters at Stockport became so well known by the citizens of Manchester that many would travel on the trams to them during the war. While it wasn't a place for long term stays, many did. Often people would sing songs, provide entertainment and the wives of soldiers would make endless cups of hot tea and provide food, clothing and medical assistance to those in need. There was quite a bit of camaraderie built up at the shelter and it became known as the Chestergate Hotel.
Weapons, aircraft, medical supplies and military uniforms were required in large volumes. Stockport, being an established centre of industrial production was well equipped to produce all these items and so the factories had to change their policies about married women working in them. It is in fact the women of the soldiers who kept the wheels of war ticking over, providing the labour at the factories to fulfill all these government orders.
