大象传媒

The Air Raid Shelter

It was 1939: the start of the war. German aeroplanes were expected at any time, bringing gas and explosive bombs. But, as children, we were unaware of the horrors anticipated. All the preparations that were being made for the attacks were to us full of novelty and excitement.
We were issued with gas masks, flimsy affairs of black rubber with celluloid eyepieces, and filters which hung down in front like amputated elephants鈥� trunks. They had cloth straps which had to be adjusted so that they fitted tightly to our heads. We were made to put them on at school for half an hour or so at a time so that when the gas attacks came we would be used to wearing them.
We breathed in through the filters and our breath went out through the sides of the masks, making the rubber flap against our cheeks and giving out a cacophony of farting noises all round the classroom. We would be giggling inside the masks and our hot breath would condense, fogging up the eyepieces, so that we were unable to see one another. It came as a great relief when we were told to take off the masks which, by this time, were wet with perspiration and smelling of warm rubber.
We carried our gas masks everywhere with us: to school, to the shops, to the pictures. Some of us carried them around in the cardboard boxes in which they were issued, dangling from our necks by pieces of string. Some put the boxes in cases of American cloth with carrying straps, and some threw away the cardboard boxes and carried their masks in cylindrical tins. One boy, I remember, used his tin as a weapon, swinging it round on its string and bashing anyone who got in his way.
The schools were issued with posters showing diagrams of the different kinds of gas bombs that the Germans would use. There were mustard gas bombs that burned the lungs, and phosphorous bombs that burned the skin.
There was also, I seem to remember, a picture of an anti-personnel or booby-trap bomb. This was cylindrical, about the size of a tin of baked beans, and the casing opened up to form a pair of wings. I imagined them floating down from the sky like gliders. We were warned never to pick them up; if we did they would explode and blow us up. I believe that many were dropped on airfields and had to be defused before aeroplanes were able to take off. They were also responsible for a number of deaths.
To protect us against high explosive bombs we also had to have air raid shelters. Those people with gardens were issued with Anderson shelters. These were made from corrugated steel sheets which had to be bolted together and half buried in the ground. But most people in Silver End and the neighbouring streets had no gardens and so a communal shelter had to be built for us.
There were some stables at one end of our lane, belonging to the brickworks, which were no longer used, and these were demolished to make way for a shelter. A gang of men arrived and dug a deep ditch about eighty feet long. The shelter was built inside this and then covered over with a thick layer of soil so that, from a few feet away, it was invisible, being just a shallow mound of earth.
The door was at one end and was approached down a steeply sloping ramp. At the other end was a vertical shaft with a ladder leading to an escape hatch at the top. There were benches on each side, running down the whole length, with enough room to seat about a hundred people. There were no lights in the shelter and it was pitch dark inside, apart from the meagre light coming through the door.
We children loved the shelter. It was our play den. We ran down the ramp and through the door, feeling our way along the dark tunnel inside, making ghostly noises and squealing to frighten each other, our voices echoing in the narrow space; then climbing the ladder at the far end, up the shaft and out of the hatch into the fresh air, then back down the ramp again and into the dark shelter, smelling of damp earth, where we would play hide and seek, lying down under the benches and holding onto each other, giggling, our hearts beating with fear.
I wondered what it would be like in the shelter during air raids, getting up in the middle of the night and huddling together in the dark, with the occasional flashing of torches as people looked for seats, and red points of light as they drew on their cigarettes. There would be singing to keep up our spirits: Ten Green Bottles, Little Brown Jug, Roll out the Barrel.
There would be air raids, we knew that, everyone said so. There were steelworks nearby and foundries. And we were half way between Birmingham and Wolverhampton where there were factories making guns, tanks and aeroplanes, which would be certain targets. Yes, we were bound to have air raids.
But our shelter was never to be used. A second gang of men arrived and built another one alongside the first. This was a terrible shelter and we all hated it. It was just a brick box with a concrete roof, similar to those built on patches of waste ground and in school playgrounds all over the country.
鈥淭hat鈥檒l never withstand a bomb,鈥� people said. 鈥淵ou might as well stop in the house as go in that thing,鈥� and 鈥淲hat鈥檚 wrong with the other shelter? It鈥檚 down below the ground. It鈥檚 safer under the ground.鈥�
But the new shelter was never meant to withstand a direct hit from a bomb. It was merely to protect people from shrapnel, glass and other flying debris. And there was a weakness in the first shelter that few people had recognised, a fatal flaw that everyone had overlooked - including the people responsible for building it - it was made of wood. The local council hadn鈥檛 known, nor had they had the wit to find out, that the Germans would be dropping incendiary bombs, and if one had dropped near the shelter, or even if someone inside had dropped a smouldering cigarette while we were sheltering from the bombs, we could all have been burnt to a crisp. Such are the ways of bureaucracy.
As soon as the second shelter was finished men came to dismantle the first. By the end of the first day they had shovelled off all the earth on top, revealing the wooden structure underneath. The next day they would return to finish the job. When they came they would be in for a surprise.
At that time wood was precious. We all had open fires and needed wood for kindling. Besides, two or three lumps of blazing wood, with some slack behind them, made quite a good fire. As soon as the workmen had gone home we all descended on the shelter with saws, axes and hammers. By the dim light of torches and candles, men, women and children tore the shelter to pieces, starting with the benches, then tearing up the floor, the pillars and beams, and moving on to the wooden planks that formed the walls and ceiling.
There were rows and squabbles as one person cut a piece of wood free and another picked it up and walked off with it, disappearing into the darkness and causing angry shouts of, 鈥淓h, come back, that鈥檚 mine.鈥� 鈥淪od off, I got it fust.鈥� 鈥淒oe 鈥榓ve it all, leave some for others.鈥� 鈥淭here鈥檚 plenty for everybody. Stop yer bloody moaning.鈥� 鈥淪elfish bugger!鈥� 鈥淢ind yer language, there鈥檚 kids here.鈥� And cries of pain echoed down the shelter as someone received a blow from a hammer or an axe, or a splinter went into someone鈥檚 hand, bringing forth a loud curse.
Eventually the roof of the shelter was torn apart and we could see the sky, but there was little more light. The sun had gone down and all that remained was the afterglow of sunset. The streetlights were heavily shaded, so that no warning would be given to German bombers that there was a town below them, and gave out hardly any light at all. A woman flashed a torch so that she could see her way up the ramp with an armful of wood, but there was a cry of 鈥淧ut that bloody light out, don鈥檛 yer know there鈥檚 a blackout? We shall have the police here in a minute,鈥� and it went out again.
I groped my way towards the entrance, treading on someone鈥檚 foot and bringing forth more curses. I struggled up the ramp with my own bundle which I dumped on the front yard. Other dark figures hurried home, their arms loaded with wood, returning empty-handed a few minutes later for more.
Rapidly the shelter was taken apart and, within two or three hours, it had gone. All that remained was the hole. It was as though an army of ravenous rodents had devoured the corpse of some great beast, leaving nothing behind but a stain on the ground where it had lain.
When the men came back the following day to finish their work they scratched their heads in disbelief. Their work had been done for them. All that remained for them to do was to fill in the hole.
I don鈥檛 think the second shelter was used any more than was the first - at least not for air raids. Young boys used it to have a secret smoke in the dark; and older ones would steer their girl friends inside away from prying eyes; and dogs used it as a lavatory. The people who had built it so quickly and efficiently were less eager to take it down and it remained an irritating eyesore for years after the war.
When the German bombers did come, to the wailing of the sirens, people made their own arrangements to shelter. Some ignored the whole thing and stayed in bed. Others hid under the stairs or went down into their cellars or, if they didn鈥檛 have a cellar of their own, they shared those of their neighbours. We did have a cellar but it was small and damp and half full of coal. Our neighbours, the Genners, had a cellar that was large and airy, with arches leading from one room to another, and was as big as the ground floor of the house. It also had two doors, one in the house and one leading up a flight of steps to the back yard. It was better than any air raid shelter and we shared it with them. When the sirens went, always in the middle of the night, Dad, who was an air raid warden, would go out on his tour of duty, making sure that no lights were shining, and Mum and I would take coats, blankets and pillows and go to the Genners鈥� cellar.
The Genners had laid out several straw mattresses on the floor and we huddled together on these and tried to sleep but without success. The mattresses were as hard as stone and we鈥檇 have been just as comfortable lying on the floor. There was no heating in the cellar and the only light was a smelly paraffin lamp that cast black wavering shadows on the walls whenever anyone moved. It was a great relief when the all-clear went and we were able to drag ourselves back to our beds.
Fortunately the air raids didn鈥檛 last for long. After the Battle of Britain had been lost by the Germans and they turned their attentions to Russia, raids were few and far between.

I still remember with fondness our wooden air raid shelter. It was a bizarre piece of folly, like a ship carved from stone, or a tower built from sand. I suppose there was a sense of urgency in the air at the time, a feeling that something had to be done quickly, and wood was a material that lent itself to rapid building.
I have often wondered since then whether wooden air raid shelters were built in other parts of the country. Or was ours the only one, unique to us in our small corner of the Black Country? I like to think that it was.

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