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Now the War year’s had really started but it was the ‘Phoney War’, nothing seemed to be happening so the parents, under a greave misapprehension that it was just a big bluff, began to bring their children home again. Dad came to fetch Lily and me one Sunday and there were a lot of tearful farewells as we departed where we had been evacuated to (Monmouth).

What a dreary place ‘Old Brummagem’ was after the clean and refreshing air of Monmouthshire. We started our old lives again, Lily having to look after Dad and me, me fetching, carrying and doing what I could. Although I was only eleven years old I was still only a skinny little thing but I still had to do a lot of work in the house. It was during this time of the quiet war that the Anderson Shelters were delivered. Dad had to give up his little garden in the front of the house and dig a very large hole, what a mess it was. The earth was piled up all over the place and the galvanised sheets of the shelter had to be bedded in and bolted together, then the floor had to be concreted. The neighbours all helped one another, some would not dig the ground to put the Anderson Shelters in they opted for the Morrison Shelters inside the house and used as a table. When the air raid sirens went they would get into these shelters saying they were safer as you had the house as a support as well. The Anderson Shelter had only the earth piled up and around it for protection and even so a blast could still knock out the front of the shelter.

Dad built a couple of bunk beds inside and we had an oil lamp and food stored in there in case we got buried or trapped in the shelter. We tried it for a few nights but it was so cold and damp and in fact at times the shelter would flood with water at the bottom, the same that happened in the cellar of the house. We decided that it would be much better staying in our bed or going to a proper shelter.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Anastasia Travers a volunteer with WM CSV Actiondesk on behalf of Norman Bailey and has been added to the site with his permission. Norman Bailey fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

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