大象传媒

At the outbreak of the war at half past six on the third of September 1939 my mother was giving birth to my brother with the assistance of the midwife and the doctor in the main bedroom upstairs. My father and I were downstairs struggling with the then blackout curtains whereupon someone knocked on our door and it turned out to be a volunteer air raid warden and strapped to his head was a vegetable colander help by a piece of string he stated that there was no steel helmets available and he thought this would protect him from flying debris.

My father like most men who were not on active duty joined the home guard and one of his duties was to guard Selly oak bus depot during the night. on one occasion during 1942 one pleasant summer evening some officer decided to set up an anti tank machine gun post outside the oak cinema on the Bristol road south this involved rolling several cylinder blocks of concrete across the road these had holes through them which a rod was put through the middle to prevent rolling. Now these blocks weighed over half a tonne each the object was to prevent tanks coming over the barricade but to have machine guns hidden to bring fire on the unsuspecting tank crew. The theory was fine but at the time the unites had only one rifle between six men and no bullets and certainly no machine guns. After the drill was completed at four am the officer in charge decided to call a halt to proceedings but try and move these enormous concrete blocks proved impossible by this time convoys of buses heading for the longbridge works full of workers could not pass. So dozens of buses going both ways had to negotiate the small back streets of Selly oak to get around the barricade eventually they got a tank from the Stourbridge gun battery to remove the tank trap. I have vivid memories of going to bed fully clothed to be ready to rush down to the Anderson shelter with my mother and young brother this was situated at the bottom of the garden and then sitting there most of the night until the raids were over. Our house was on the flare path for the German bombers and one night during a heavy raid our house was hit by a flare, my mother grabbed me and we ran into the house and up the stairs to the loft and mother lifted me into the loft passed me a bucket of sand and told me how to douse the fire which I did successfully all at the age of eight years old. We lived at Weoley castle and German bombers were constantly seeking out the aircraft works at longbridge flying over our house. One of our past times was watching bombers going on missions in easily evening and returning in the am in the most appalling conditions with flames coming from the engines etc. we used to watch dog fights over Birmingham with spitfires and German fighters and two lessons a week at school in gas masks. These are memories I do not want anyone to have to go through again but as a nation we were unbeatable.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Anastasia Travers from WM CSV Action Desk on behalf of Harry Poole and has been added to the site with her permission. Harry Poole fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

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