大象传媒

Not so much a slum child ,but more of a child of the slums Unless you were evacuated
it was a different kind of war .Great Francis Street Saltley was a warren of back to back houses and courtyards ,a feature of our surroundings was several gasometers,which was a cause for concern during a bombing raid.which brings me to one episode during a bombing raid .a very brave service-man who was on leave during one such raid knew that incendary bombs had been dropped on at least one gas holder ,he made his way to the danger area and cleared the danger ,thus saving the whole area from devestation,but after his very short leave .he just reported back to his unit ,and carried on with his war .To a lad who was bought up on John Wayne type heroics,that service-man changed my whole outlook on heroes.
In a strange way war was an exciting time,fear never really enterd my mind ,it did not seem to matter to me if our slum dwelling got hit ,it was a bad place to live
one occasionduring a raid i recallthat all the airaid shelters were full ,so everyone in our yard had to go to to the newsgents and use their coal celler ,whilst the raid was on a series of whistling bombs were dropped,a lady who lost her nerve started shouting "the next one is for us " she called this out several times before a little old lady got hold of her ,shook her and calmed her down ,it really helped to calm us kids .then someone came around and dished out cups of cocoa or something similar,iv never forgotten the taste of that cocoa ,never drank it since .
a bit further on into the war we started to see lots of American soldiers ,we soon learned that if you cry out "got any gum chum "you could get the odd treat .They all seemed so big and heavy compared to our people .then we started to see the coloured soldiers ,at first we were scared ,but after a while we were spellbound by them ,their infectious smiles ,and their lovely white teeth .We never seemed to see very many british soldiers or sailors around ,only the odd few on leave .Weused to touch sailors collers ,thinking it would bring them good luck ,but we lost so much shipping and sailorsthat we decided it bought bad luck so we stopped doing it .One day a sailor on leave took up his kit bag and withdrew a couple of bananasout of it ,well what a commotion that caused ,all the kids in the area rushed around to savour the sight .most of us had only ever seen a banana in the beano or dandy.it was another four years later before i got to peel and eat one .
From time to time mom used to take us up to the Bull Ring ,and if it happen to be after an air-raid we would see italian prisoners -of -war helping to clear up the roads ,at least thats what we were told they were .,they seemed happy enough ,singing as they worked .what a strange place the city centre was at that time .trying to avoid the bomb damage ,suprised to see what had got hit during the raids

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