As my daughter and I wandered around part of the extensive tunnels cut into the sandstone cliffs in Stockport town centre we heard children singing WW2 popular songs.Then we came upon a group of school children who looked almost as if they had stepped out of the world of the early 1940's. They were listening to a lady telling them about the time when the tunnels became like a second home to hundreds of people.
The cliffs had been first dug out to provide cellars for homes along Chestergate but then the council demolished the houses and planned to widen the street and extend the cellars into an underground car park. After a survey showed that this was not feasible the advent of war meant that they would be suitable for an air raid shelter. The tunnels with interlinking passages are over a mile long and officially sheltered almost 4000 people but actually with other tunnels reached 6500 in the second winter of the war. People from Stockport had priority but the tunnels were also used by many from neighbouring Manchester and Salford which were enemy targets. There were even electric lighting and flush toilets which many people did not have and it unofficially became known as the Chestergate Hotel.
The children today were imagining that they were living through the frequent air raids as planes flew over on their way to bomb targets in the northwest of England. Meanwhile we found it difficult to imagine how so many hundreds would try to sleep in these tunnels night after night and then wonder what they might find in the morning. The very good displays and audio guides made this a very worthwhile visit to this fascinating museum.