During the Second World War Malton and Norton were very different places as the towns joined the war effort. Howard Campion looks back at the time in history.

In order to prepare for possible attacks, the two towns had to have their civil defences prepared.

They were supervised in Malton by Foliot Ward and in Norton by Mr Frankish, who was also a head teacher at Norton Boys school until 1949.

They organised the building of over a dozen public air raid shelters, which Norton teacher Mrs Emerson compiled a list of some years ago.

There were also some shelters on private land such as the underground one at Norton Vicarage.

Regarding examples of present day remains of the public shelters, Wentworth Street’s building was up against the boundary wall of Newbiggin’s gardens and there is said to be some evidence still there.

It is likely that some areas of these gardens were taken over during its construction and this has resulted in a widened area in Wenworth Street which has benefited present day parking facilities.

During hostilities residents became accustomed to the air raid warnings, the last raid being on March 30, 1945, near the end of the Second World War.

On that occasion, houses in Mount Crescent were attacked by machine gunning.

Until the 1950s, the warning was sounded daily at noon from the old fire station to signal ‘dinner time’ and it became locally known as ‘moaning Minnie’.

It is reasonably certain that there were no fatalities in the local area, the nearest being in Gilling where a late-night train was strafed with the only passenger being killed.

Due to Malton’s small number of industrial sites, it is hard to distinguish between planned attacks and the pressing need for the enemy crew to get rid of as much of their explosives as possible whilst heading home in an easterly direction after bombing other parts of the north.

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The relative safety of the two towns in respect of enemy attacks therefore made them an ideal location for evacuees who came mainly from Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Hull.

Indeed, local schools altered their daily routines to accommodate the extra pupils and in some cases cohorts of evacuee pupils stayed temporarily in Malton and Norton during term time.

In respect of physical defences, Norton’s Wood Street has recently been mentioned and a ‘gun hole’ was also built into the wall of Malton Vicarage.

It is uncertain whether its place in the building can still be seen.

Defence oriented troop training took place on the nearby Wolds because of its apparent similarity to Normandy regarding landscape.

The then Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited Kirkham Abbey to review practised river-based manoeuvres there.

  • Howard Campion is a trustee at the Malton and Norton Heritage Centre