大象传媒

I was born in Birmingham in 1944 so I don't have any personal memories of the Birmingham Blitz. However, 'my' story is really the story of my family. Father was Bert Hill, very proud to have been born within the ancient bounds of Aston Manor. Mother was Gertrude Hill, known to almost everyone as Connie because her maiden name was Connolly. We lived in a tiny back-to-back terraced house in William Street, near the Accident Hospital and not far from Broad Street and Birmingham City Centre. Gran was Catherine Connolly, born Macnamara and she lived in the pragmatically named Waterworks Road in Edgbaston, also in a tiny terraced house. Whenever I stayed with Gran, my first view each morning was of Perrot's Folley which had been renamed Edgbaston Observatory: one of Tolkien's twin towers (the other tower was the water tower at the bottom of the road). My paternal grandfather died in Mesopotamia on the way back from World War One: a victim of the massive 'flu epidemic. Father became 'the man of the family' at a very young age. He was both clever and artistic, but was unable to take up the scholarship he won because the family could not afford books or uniform. He used to wonder what he might have achieved, because the girl who took his place later became Churchill's secretary. My father's memory of his own father was of a hero departing to save the world, so when WW2 was declared, father volunteered to serve in the forces. He was not A1, since he had a perforated ear drum, but he was determined to fight for his country. He volunteered so often that he was threatened with imprisonment for wasting everyone's time.

During the war, father worked in the Black Country and had fond memories of his workmates there. Some of them kept pigs and chickens, and they would scrub a garden spade until it sparkled and then fry bacon and eggs over an open fire. They always shared these feasts with him, and he developed a real taste for Black Country scratchings. As the war progressed, medical examinations were far less stringent and father told mother that as soon as his call up papers arrived, she should bring them to him at work. She did, but father was in a reserve occupation helping make airplanes and his supervisor said, "It's alright, Bert. Got your call up papers but I've fixed it for you." As you can imagine, he was furious but there was nothing more he could do to become a soldier hero like his father. His brothers and brothers-in-law joined up, came home in uniform and were generally regarded as heroes by everyone in the neighbourhood although none of them saw much active service. One brother-in-law simply worked in the stores at an English Army base. Father, however, after his day's work, became an auxiliary fireman and rose to leading hand (although I can't remember if that's the right term), and he saw and experienced plenty of action as Birmingham became the target of the Luftwaffe. One night, he rushed into a building which was on fire because there were people in there who would be at risk. There was another explosion and he felt himself being lifted up, carried through the window and deposited on the pavement. After he got back home both eyes gradually turned black and his head began to ache. Thebomb blast had fractured is skull. Most of our neighbours were good friends, like Mrs, Wakelam, affectionately known as 'Wakey' because she knocked our door every morning to make sure father did not oversleep after his night's horrors. However, one mean-spirited neighbour accused father of cowardice and even tried to hand him a white feather, while he was risking his life to save people like her as well as working hard for the war effort. In my book, he really was a hero, as were all those who did not just 'stay behind' but risked their own lives to save others. Maybe that's why I've spent the last twenty years running a volunteer centre in the Black Country.

Mother, meanwhile, was having her own difficulties. My brother John was born after many complications in May 1939. Because mother had been ill after the birth and John was so young, it was decided that they should stay with father's cousins in the relative safety of Sutton Coldfield for a while. By 1943 she was pregnant again and I was born at home in April 1944 without complications, with help from Doctor Gould and Nurse Instone. Doctor Gould was Jewish and a neighbourhood legend for tending the very rich and the very poor alike. There were many tales of mother and our neighbours trying to get the children into the shelters and one night our next door neighbour Agnes Feegan, who was also pregnant, could not open her door because the bomb blast had created a vacuum. It was the women who fought to help her and get her and the children into the shelter. The baby was delivered safely, as was I in April 1944. On the reverse of my birth certificate is a stamp reading 'one baby helmet issued 6/6/1944' and mother told me that the helmet was a torpedo shaped metal case into which the whole baby was put. Mother also volunteered: as a former waitress she helped provide refreshments for ARPs, firemen and volunteer medics, etc. and also helped out at the Birmingham Services Club. This was her main war effort and to help her carry out her voluntary work, my grandmother looked after my brother and me. Gran was an extraordinary woman whose own husband had been a professional soldier and had certainly seen a great deal of action in the Great War and elsewhere - but that's another story. Gran was a staunch Roman Catholic, and both during and after the war it was a regular occurrence for the church to ask her to take people into her tiny terraced house until they found a home; or to care for children while their parents worked or volunteered. Many colourful characters came into our lives this way. I particularly remember Eddie Boylan for his vivid stories of which I, as a small child, believed every fantastic word though not one of them was actually true!

Whenever mother or father told me about Dunkirk or the Battle of Britain, they would struggle with huge emotions, as their throats contracted, voices wobbled and eyes filled with tears. The war was a sharply etched memory for them until they died. Rationing was still a vivid memory, too. Until the very end, mother kept reserves of sugar and tinned goods, although she never took sugar in her tea and rarely opened a tin!

Of course, there were many soldier heroes too. I remember one neighbour who lived in a 'prefab' and had no arms or legs: as a young man of eighteen, he had been guarding an amunition dump when it was bombed. He would have been justified in feeling very bitter, but he was a lovely man who felt. like many others, that he 'had just been doing his duty'. With the development of artificial limbs and other advances, he lived a very ordinary life and even married and had children.

My generation was so lucky: we were able to grow up in a more peaceful world, aware of the waste and sacrifice of war. We were surrounded by heroes and heroines, both recognized and unsung. It might not have been 'a land fit for heroes' but it was certainly a land full of them.

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