The Bank Row memorial garden: It's a sacred spot
Recorded 1 year ago
About this recording
Jenny Szyfelbain tells of her early involvement in the Bank Row memorial garden group (Second World War Air Raid Victims - Wick) as plans were formed to turn a derelict corner of Lower Pulteneytown into a community garden and a place of remembrance for 18 people who lost their lives in two air raids. Fifteen died in the Bank Row bombing in July 1940 and three more were killed in Hill Avenue in October the same year.
The site had been neglected for decades after the war, but family members of the victims were determined to tidy it up and create a fitting memorial.
“It was a site of dereliction,” Jenny says. “It never lost that horrible feeling that something awful had happened. It always used to creep up the back of your neck.”
She tells a gruesome story from childhood relating to one of the victims, grocer Bill Smith who had a shop on the corner of Bank Row, near the Black Stairs.
Jenny adds: “I was desperate to get involved to do something positive to make an awful site something that we would be proud of.”
As well as taking part in fundraising events and raising awareness, Jenny conducted a series of audio interviews to gather childhood memories from those who recalled the tragic events of 1940. “Their memories at that point were still as sharp as if it happened yesterday, and the sorrow had never left them,” Jenny says.
She also looks back to the most high-profile fundraising event, a concert in the Assembly Rooms for the BBC radio programme Let’s Do the Show Right Here. It featured Michelle McManus, of Pop Idol fame, and was hosted by Bryan Burnett. As part of the show, Jenny recited a moving poem she had written.
The garden had its official opening in 2010 after many years of work by committee members and others in the community, supported by generous local businesses.
“I think it’s a respected space,” Jenny says. “You take tourists in and they’re very happy if you just have a yarn with them and tell them all about it.
“It’s a place of nooks and crannies. You can see such a lot when you go into it and I think they come off with knowledge but they get the feeling it’s a sacred spot, because that’s where people died.”
Some of those Jenny mentions in this recording are Duncan and Elsie Cormack, who were at the forefront of setting up the memorial garden group (Elsie lost her two younger sisters in the bombing of Bank Row); Jenny’s husband Raymond Szyfelbain; and their son Steven.
Jenny has made several recordings for Wick Voices under her maiden name Jenny Stewart, and in 2022 she did a joint interview with her husband. In that one, Raymond shares some memories of his Polish-born father, the late Oskar Schiefelbein, better known as Steve Szyfelbain.
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Photos
Harry Gray
