Memories of bombing raids on Leeds and VE Day letter from King George

Michael Steel, who lived with his family on Kirkstall Hill as a child, remembers taking refuge in an Anderson shelter as enemy aircraft targeted the nearby Kirkstall Forge and also hit homes.

And Mr Steel, who was a pupil at St Michael's Junior School in Headingley, has shared the letter King George VI sent to schoolchildren to celebrate VE Day.

During the war, Mr Steel's father Thomas Gregory Steel ran engineering company JF Riley and Company at the junction of Morris Lane and Kirkstall Lane.

Up to 30 employees manufactured munitions during the war years.

Mr Steel, of Farsley, who worked in the manufacturing industry throughout his career, was six-years-old in 1941 and vividly recalls German bombing raids on Leeds.

Mr Steel, who has been married to his wife Patricia for 60-years, said: "You could identify the German bombers, the Dorniers because they had a different sound to the English bombers.

"Leeds got quite a bit of stick and I remember attacks where you had to leave the house and take shelter in the Anderson shelter in the garden.

"They were searching for Kirkstall Forge. They bombed Kirkstall Forge, but they didn't put it out of action.

"Certain friends of a similar age, their homes took direct hits from incendiary bombs from bombers that were probably on the return from Kirkstall Forge and were discharging what they had left."

A total of 77 people were killed in Leeds and 327 injured during nine Second World War bombing raids, which destroyed 197 buildings and damaged a further 7,623.

In historian Dr Kevin Grady's 1994 book The Illustrated History of Leeds, which he co-authored with Steven Burt, he described some of the air raids.

The most violent assault came one night in March 1941 when incendiary bombs hit the city centre and areas of north and east Leeds.

It was followed by high explosive bombs, which struck Leeds General Infirmary, Leeds Town Hall, the City Museum, Kirkgate Market, St Peter's School, Park Square and Quarry Hill flats.

In August 1942, five workers were killed when Kirkstall Forge was bombed.

Mr Steel said he can remember VE Day, adding: "There was a lot of activity going on in Leeds with street parties."

Mr Steel has kept the VE Day letter from King George VI safe for 75-years.

King George wrote in the letter dated June 8 1946: "Today, as we celebrate victory, I send this personal message to you and all other boys and girls at the school. For you have shared in the hardships and dangers of a total war and you have shared no less in the triumph of the Allied Nations.

"I know you will always feel proud to belong to a country which was capable of such supreme effort; proud, too, of parents and older brothers and sisters who by their courage, endurance and enterprise brought victory.

"May these qualities be yours as you grow up and join in the common efforts to establish among the nations of the world unity and peace."