大象传媒

This short article came about from when I found myself talking about my moment of fame in taking the part of Sleeping Beauty during an end of the war street party.
To get to the point, we had two shelters to protect us from the bombs. My clearest memories are of the Doodle Bugs and the Rockets, but most of all my dearest memories are of our dog Biddy. She always seemed to have pups, which we children adored. When the air raid siren sounded Biddy was first into the indoor shelter. However before departing into the house, she herded the pups onto the lawn for us kids to gather up and take to the Anderson shelter. she was a good mother and I remember her taking each pup separately onto the middle of the lawn and teasing it, until it snapped at her, thus ended the lesson. She was a very soft old thing and was'nt agressive herself. As we gathered up a handful of pups each, we would gaze at the sky; the Doodle Bug could cut its engines and glide away, or it could dive straight down. As for the Rockets, you did'nt hear them! I can hear the drone of the Doodle Bug engines today, but nicer I can smell the milky puppies.

I digress, we had two shelters as my aunt lived with us and worked in nearby Leylands which made tanks. Her husband was with the Eighth Army somewhere in North Africa. We always had a relative living with us, or an Uncle on short term leave from the army. My favourite was Uncle Joe, who sometimes turned up in the middle of the night with his air crew. They just bedded down on the dining room floor. I would discover them in the morning and they were always ready to play with me. Uncle Joe was a Sergeant Pilot and he and his crew were shot down over Germany in January 1943.

The Morrison Shelter lived in the front room, and consisted of a flat iron top held in place by four iron uprights, the cage like sides were never put on. Biddy was the first in when the siren sounded. We kids fled to the Anderson in the garden. A big hole had been dug and corrugated galvanized sheets were placed in the hole and as they sloped they formed a roof. The soil from the hole was piled on top. Biddy loved this hill as a look out post, we both missed it after it was dismantled. At night Biddy and her pups were locked in the shed where they had a bed. The pups were in great demand, and there was never any trouble finding homes for them, we hated it as each one had to leave us. Once Biddy dug a hole in the garden and crawled into it, my father was late in preparing a bed in the shed for her and the expected pups, she normally slept in her kennel.

The Anderson had two bunks, my older sisters slept on the top bunk and my aunt and me slept on the bottom bunk. At one point I had a bad dose of Measles but the bombing was so bad, it was'nt safe to leave me in my bed in the house.

Street life was good and there was always someone to play with, there were water tanks at one end of the road, which were banned to children. At last someone fell in, he was rescued. He has lived in America most of his adult life. At our end their was a brick reinforced shelter.

To celebrate VE Day, three Morrisons were erected against the brick shelter and my sisters and others were instrumental in getting together a fancy dress parade and a play. I was Sleeping Beauty, nepotism do I hear. Prince Charming kept getting the giggles every time he was supposed to kiss me awake. He lost his part and another took his place. The second boy took it all very seriously. My first co-star returned to New Zealand soon after the war, and a constant playmate was gone.

Dont know what happened to the Morrison, but the Anderson was rebuilt over ground on to a brick platform and served as a coal shed for years. My mother planted a Walnut near to it, and the tree grew into a sturdy tree giving a good harvest of nuts every autumn. However whereby the bombs did'nt get the Anderson, the Walnut tree did for it. It blew down in that gale, come hurricane of 1976, the Anderson was flattened. The rabbit next door also lost his home, but he was OK.

So the old shelter came to an ignominious end, or did it. What do yo think.

Janet Norman-Byrne April 2003.

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