大象传媒

At the start of the War, I was 12 years old and we lived at a shop with living quarters at 93 Grove Lane Handsworth Birmingham .My brother John(10 years) and sister Clare (8 years) were evacuated, John to Stroud with The Handsworth Grammer School and Clare went to a small village just outside Gloucester with St Michael's School. I well remember going with my mother to see her off, mother cried all the way home.I later went to Cannons Ashby to stay with my mother's cousin.I caught Cattle Ringworm after a few months and not long after the big Air Raid on Coventry had to go back to Birmingham to have the ringworm treated and this was to the Air Raids as well.
My Father, Henry Roland Fleming, who had served in The Royal Engineers during the Great War, having aquainted himself with the possibility of having to deal with Incendiary Bombs, made a stack of sand bags which were at the front of the shop. I helped him fill them with sand. It was hard work but as it turned out well worth the effort.
One night the air raid Sirens had sounded. I, with my parents, were in a room at the back of the shop.The Ack Ack Guns were firing salvo after salvo. For some reason it suddenly went quiet. We heard the sound of breaking glass and Grove Lane was illuminated with about 150 incendiary bombs. Dad said "Come on". We went to the sand bags, taking one each ran over to the nearest burning incendiary bomb, dropped the sandbag on to it smothering it. We carried on until there was only one left burning, which firewatchers were trying to put out using a stirrup pump with a fine spray of water.Dad said to me "Go on show them how to put it out", which I did with a sandbag.We then went back into the house where mom had made us a cup of tea. We had nearly drunk the tea when there was an almighty hammering on our front door. I heard a voice say "Your roof is alight mate".My dad rushed up stairs picking up a shovel on his way and went into the loft, up the stairs that he had made for his father years before so that timber could be stored in the loft.Fortunately the timber was flat and the incendiary was burning on top of it .Dad scooped up the bomb on the shovel and was coming down the stairs intending to throw it through the window, when a young Firewatcher with the nozzle of a stirrup pump in his hand rushed into the small room leading to the stairs. He was wearing a steel helmet which collided with the shovel knocking the bomb into our carpets wich had been stacked in that small room .This fire was put out using the stirrup pump.I remember a Police Officer coming to the scene and took down all the particulars which he had to submit a report for the log of that night.Some one took the tail of the incendary, much to my disgust.Although things had gone wrong, Dad called that firewatcher a daft ha'p'worth. He did't even swear.
By William Henry Nigel Fleming

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