大象传媒

SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF LIFE IN BIRMINGHAM DURING WW2.

庐 The Outbreak of War.

Although I was only four year鈥檚 old at the time, I was well aware how concerned my parents were as to the threat that Hitler and the Nazis posed; And in due course my mother and I heard Joseph Chamberlain solemnly announce on the wireless one lunchtime that,
鈥溾�his country is now at war with Germany鈥�.

A few weeks later, I was playing with my friend Terry from next door in the back garden of our house when to our great surprise we heard the sound of an aeroplane. A small yellow monoplane then came into sight flying so low that it skimmed the rooftops of the houses on the brow of Marsh Hill. Moreover, it was coming directly towards us. (I lived then at the end of Hidson Road in Erdington, a northern suburb of Birmingham).
Neither of us had seen an aircraft before so it really grabbed our attention. As it approached, we could clearly see the pilot and his observer in their open-top cockpits wearing their goggles and leather helmets. However, my initial excitement quickly turned to fear when I recognised that this aeroplane had a large black Swastika painted on the side of the fuselage.
鈥淚T鈥橲 A JERRY鈥�, I yelled out. However, instead of running into my house we threw pebbles up at the intruder as it flew over Terry鈥檚 garden. That act of defiance caused the pilot to point down at us and indicate to his observer sitting behind him that two little lads were daring to fight back.
Obviously, this reconnaissance plane was en route down Marsh Hill, (our house being near the top), to spy on the Kynoch works at Witton about a mile away where a quarter of the country鈥檚 munitions for small arms were made during the War.

Otherwise, for a while we had the 鈥榩honey war鈥� when we anxiously prepared for the expected and feared bombing raids:-
I remember helping to criss-cross sticky brown paper over the ground floor windows of our house and filling buckets with sand in readiness to throw over any incendiary bombs that might fall; and my father made a wide spade out of wood for scooping them up.
I also assisted in digging an enormous hole in the back garden for an Anderson shelter, the many corrugated and shiny galvanized sections of which were delivered on a lorry. I helped my father fasten the shelter together making sure that I put curved washers on the bolts before screwing the square nuts on. Then we buried the shelter under loads of earth and chunks of rockery stone, that became a great place for Terry and me to play on.
The attached 1942 photograph, shows us sitting on the shelter; I am in the white shirt.
I recall when the teachers and nuns at Erdington Abbey infants鈥� school handed out gas masks. When I put mine on for the first time, it smelt of rubber and nearly suffocated me and also misted up such that I could barely see out of it. However, I did 鈥榖ag鈥� the only shiny blue can with a shoulder strap to carry my gas mask around in, which subsequently I 鈥榮howed off鈥� to the other children because their cans were painted in a dull red colour.
Large brick shelters with concrete roofs were built at school, which the teachers took us into for singsong sessions.
An enormous, round, metal-sided reserve water supply tank was erected on the grass verge outside the Stockland Inn on Marsh Hill in Stockland Green, directly opposite my grandmother鈥檚 house. Communal shelters were also constructed near there. The alarm sirens were tested in practice 鈥楢lerts鈥�. Streetlights were extinguished or dimmed, cowls were fitted over vehicle headlamps, and the doctor鈥檚 car went around with an enormous gasbag on top.

Late one night an ARP, (Air Raid Protection), man wearing his black helmet hammered loudly on our front door and angrily told my parents off for allowing a chink of light to show through their blackout curtains.

My mother fretted over the rations and somehow traded coupons she did not want in order to obtain an extra (small) bar of Cadbury鈥檚 chocolate for me from a near neighbour who apparently operated in the 鈥楤lack Market鈥�.

庐 The Bombing.

But then in the middle of one night we were awoken by the sirens loudly sounding the 鈥楢lert鈥� for real, and that wailing and fluctuating sound still causes my inside to tighten with fear whenever I hear it again, say, on TV.
My father carried me half asleep, still dressed in my pyjamas, into our air-raid shelter where eventually the neighbours from next door joined us and sat down alongside us on the bunks. Sleepy-eyed people chatted and tried to be cheery but all were inwardly afraid. The shelter was cold and damp and by the dim light of two candles I watched driblets of condensation trickle down the wet and shiny corrugated walls 鈥� and wondered if a bomb would fall on us.
Then, overhead we heard the frighteningly loud 鈥榖rmm-brmm-brmm 鈥︹�� of the deliberately synchronised beat of the engines of the Heinkel or Dornier bombers as they approached soon to be followed by the crashing sound of heavy anti-aircraft guns opening fire at them, if only to boost citizen鈥檚 morale. In this cacophony of noise, we could also clearly hear the distinctive rapid firing of the Bofors 鈥榩om-pom鈥� guns that guarded the Castle Bromwich shadow factory where thousands of Spitfire fighter aircraft were made. I also opened continuous fire with my Dinky type AA gun spitting spent matches up at our tin roof and at Terry to wake him.
After spending an hour or two in our bolthole, everyone heaved great sighs of relief when eventually the continuous 鈥楢ll-Clear鈥� siren was sounded so enabling us to trudge wearily back to bed. Sadly, however, my poor father would then only get an hour or two of sleep before he had to get up at six o鈥檆lock that morning in order to set off to do his sheet-metal war work.

That was just the beginning of the bombing raids on Brum, with Kynoch鈥榮 being a prime target, of course. Thereafter we endured raids once or twice every 24 hours, usually at night, that just got worse and worse. One raid even lasted 13 hours, I understand.
I shall never forget the shock of emerging from our shelter after a particularly heavy night raid and seeing from our high viewpoint, in the distance, the city centre of Birmingham glowing orange red due to the huge fires that were raging there. These lit up the smoke and the few clouds and reddened the sky above. Unfortunately, that raid destroyed the old Market Hall, which had inside high up on a sidewall a large clock with two figures that struck the time on a gong - an event I always insisted my parents allow me to see before we left the busy place.
Next day, out of sheer curiosity to see the terrible destruction that had been wrought, we travelled into the city centre on a number 78 tram that had bodywork and glass riddled with holes, damage which may have been done when one of the tram sheds was bombed.

My mother and I were shopping in the city centre once when an 鈥楢lert鈥� sounded and we were ushered into the basement of Lewis鈥檚 store where emergency casualty beds were located.

Much nearer to home the occupants of two houses about 100 yards away on Marsh Hill were killed, I was told, when these were flattened in a nighttime raid.

We were obliged to stay at my grandmother鈥檚 house for three days because a huge oil bomb had buried itself into the front garden of a house in Ransom Road about forty yards away from our house, which was on the corner of Hidson Road.
The police told us we could go back home once the bomb had been safely defused. On returning there the bomb disposal men allowed me to venture forward and stand at the edge of the roped-off deep crater so that I could peer down at the dark metal casing of the sinister looking bomb, which might well have been four or five feet in diameter.

Pieces of shrapnel thudded heavily on to our shelter during one nighttime raid and startled us. That prompted my worried father to venture outside to check that all was well and, before my mother could stop me, I gingerly crept out after him into the cold air whilst the bombers droned above and distant guns fired away at them.
There I found myself confronted with the totally unexpected and breath-taking sight of bright searchlight beams, about four in total, sweeping the cloud-less and starry night sky in a search for the bombers. Otherwise, everywhere was in pitch darkness because all the streetlights had been extinguished. Unfortunately, just when a bomber was illuminated my father spotted me and literally dragged me back into the shelter. That real-life spectacle betters anything you might see in today鈥檚 illuminations, say at Matlock or Blackpool.

One morning I had to jump over the cable of a barrage balloon that had been downed as I walked up the driveway leading to my infants鈥� school at Erdington Abbey. RAF men were there using the drum winch on an RAF lorry slowly to haul in the long cable which, as far as I could see, lay not only across the school driveway but was also strewn across many houses and gardens. It also draped over the tram wires on Sutton Road with the obvious consequence that it brought the No. 2 trams to a complete halt, and an empty one was simply parked there.

Then in 1942, to our total disbelief, the bombing just ceased. We had several anxious nights thereafter before we could allow ourselves to sleep soundly again.

庐 Evacuation.

When the bombing became intense, my father decided that we should evacuate for a few weeks first to digs in Sutton Coldfield and then, surprisingly, to Coseley in the Black Country.

庐 Victory in Europe (VE).

Of course, people monitored the progress of the War intently through the censored news on the wireless, in the newspapers and in the cinema. Early reports were grim with disasters such as the sinking of the aircraft carrier Ark Royal saddening people greatly, which I saw on the Path茅 news at the local Plaza cinema. However, the mood gradually changed for the better when it became apparent that the Allies were actually winning the War and, naturally enough, everyone felt tremendous relief and joy when Germany finally surrendered.

To my great surprise the staid people at our end of Hidson Road then got together to hold a small VE party in the street opposite our house. Similar parties were held also at the other end of Hidson Road and in Ransom Road. In the afternoon, about six of us children were sat down at a table and given homemade paper hats to wear. Then we were treated to jam and/or fish-paste sandwiches, jelly, cakes and orange squash. Our gathering finished with a few games, which included musical chairs to the playing of a piano that had been trundled into the road.
Later that evening there was dancing around a large bonfire and hearty singing to the accompaniment of the piano. I tasted beer for the first time from a large barrel which was on tap, and went to bed at well past midnight because I waited for the bonfire to die down!

庐 Victory in Japan (VJ).

A few months later, I was travelling home from school on a No. 11 Outer Circle bus when I became aware of an excited buzz of conversation and overheard a woman say:
鈥淎 bomb the size of a pea would flatten Birmingham.鈥�
- The news of the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima had just been announced.
In due course, and rather belatedly, Japan surrendered. To everyone鈥檚 great relief, World War 2 that caused so much death, suffering and destruction finally ended. The celebrations this time were a little mooted but we did have a VJ street-party, nevertheless.

Civic celebrations were held in Birmingham city centre to mark the end of the War. These included huge military parades with soldiers, sailors, and air-force personnel of all nationalities marching past to the music of many brass bands and bagpipes.
Instead of just a small contingent of Americans appearing, a whole US army division of some 10,000 Yanks joined in and swaggered along ahead of perhaps hundreds of their mud stained vehicles and guns. Our crammed vantage point for viewing the procession was in Bull Street outside the pokey old Grey鈥檚 department store, which has since disappeared under high-rise buildings. Bull Street then was still paved with the wooden blocks originally laid down for the benefit of horses and to my amazement this wooden surface was ripped up and shredded to splinters by the tracks of the Americans鈥� Sherman tanks as these were steered around the corner into Colmore Row.


庐 Footnote:
We didn鈥檛 need TV in those far off days when a War was being fought!!

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