[jamesicus]

One of the most memorable Christmasses of my life was 1940. That Christmas Manchester was hit with a monumental air raid and one of the most intense incendiary bomb attacks of the war -- a fire storm ensued in the center of the city.

My father took me to the top of Crown Point, on the moors south of Burnley, where we could see Manchester burning -- the spectacular fires lit up the night skies across the horizon.

We worried about the safety of our relatives -- an aunt of mine (one of my mother's sisters) who lived in Salford and a close cousin of my mother who lived in Stretford next to Trafford Park -- and were greatly relieved to later learn that they had survived unscathed.