大象传媒

Being at war and having an air-raid shelter seemed to happen on the same day. One moment we were sitting in front of the brown curved-top wireless, an imposing piece of furniture on the corner of the sitting room, listening to a sad voice which my mother said meant we were at war, and the next my father was sweeping up the shavings left by the joiner who had boxed in under our stairs. But of course it wasn鈥檛 quite like that.True Chamberlain鈥檚 announcement on that day when the French windows stood open to the wooden-slatted verandah, was followed by the unaccustomed sound of the siren and the confused reaction of the neighbours: women called to each other in panicky voices over the garden fences 鈥淲here shall we hide? OH, will that be safe? Where shall we go, oh where shall we go?鈥� Where indeed. We ended up under the dining-room table entangled in all its gates; this was going to be great fun! At 7 years old I loved the sense that something exciting might be about to happen, but for my parents, relieved that this first siren was only a rehearsal, a strong place to shelter from the enemies鈥� bombs became a priority, and the available choices were discussed and, if possible, viewed.
I remember two of these first shelters.One was a heavy brown horror which almost filled a living-room: a steel banquetting table with girders for legs and a reinforced top which would terrify a table-cloth. Pillows and blankets stuck out from underneath and such a den should have appealed to me , but I worried about the rest of the room reduced to a strip of lino and all of us squeezing round the monster.
The other type of shelter was thrown up rapidly in back yards or open spaces at street ends. It was made of the kind of rough red speckled brick which seems unfinished, and I can feel its corners snagging my woolly cardigan even yet. A grey icing of concrete topped this haven. There was no window only a recessed door, no heat or light, bunk beds if you were lucky, and an Aladdin paraffin stove would provide heat, but not all the time. My mother said she would have died of cold in one of these if someone鈥檚 dog, Chummy, hadn鈥檛 slept on her feet all night! But by then I was safely evacuated and my parents were in the business of marching out each evening in search of shelters that rumour had it were safer than----houses.Safer even than the Anderson shelters which the government provided. My granny had one of these half-hoops of corrugated metal dug into her back garden and comouflaged by turves, which of course couldn鈥檛 be mown, so it grew into a shabby hay stack, but a stack with its feet in water for there was no drainage. It was dark and stank and had no appeal as a den, and was thankfully, never needed for it mouldered in Scotland away from Jerry鈥檚 raids. We lived in Mersey-side, however, and the docks on the river were to be a prime target for enemy bombs, so we must have a shelter to afford some protection from the expected fall-out of the over-head battles.
My parents decided to fortify the innocent coat-hanging space under the stairs.Instant war-lore had it that under the stairs was the safest place in the house, especially those stairs built against the central wall of a semi-detached house, as ours was. Our neighbours decided to do the same, and we communicated by reassuring knocks when the crumps outside seemed especially threatening. But that was to come. This day, the day war was declared in my mind, saw the creation of a separate little room under the stairs. It had a door and a light , mattresses, pillows and blankets. It was perfect for playing at鈥漢ouses鈥�, but I don鈥� t recall ever doing so, for the shelter became a very private part of the house, and for a long while it seemed we retreated to this womb every evening when the sirens wailed , and often left it only when my father rose to go to work in Liverpool at seven or eight o clock in the morning. He left at other times too when he was on 鈥淔ire Watch鈥�. This was a street safety activity arranged by the ARP wardens and manned by volunteers. Dad enjoyed it I think , going out with his dust-bin lid, stirrup pump, pail of water and sand bags at some strategic point. He was never called upon to use any of these slender weapons against the enemy鈥檚 incendiaries.My mother hated his absences, but when the bombing became really fierce with land-mines falling all around as the planes tried to locate the anti-aircraft guns in the fields behind us, these street patrols seemed to fade away
I was too young to fully appreciate the terrors felt by my parents. For me it was mostly a game, made all the more enjoyable because of our close.involvement with each other. Since early 1940 we had stopped sleeping upstairs and the cold, front drawing-room became our bedroom. Father who was short, stocky and very strong, had somehow manhandled the iron-framed double bed downstairs, no doubt with many shouts at my paper-thin mother to take more control at the rear. I slept on the sofa and loved it for the high back and arms made it cosy. It was like being in a cot again 鈥� only a cot with solid , sludge-covered black-dashed sides. I can feel my nose pressed against the rough texture and smell it yet.
When the Blitz began in all its fury we rarely slept in this downstairs bedroom, but sheltered all night in our well-provisioned den. We had a thermos of hot liquid and something to eat inside, while a jug of cold water and a chamber pot stood outside. I was snug under the narrowest sloping part of the stairs with Teddy beside me and a book or two, and I seemed to have my own little lamp balanced on the electricity meter. We spent the time before I slept reading, talking and sometimes singing; obviously my parents鈥� attempts to drown the screaming sounds in the air and the reverberating thumps which shook the house..One particular night when I could sense my parents鈥� tenseness and had rather lost patience with their distressed fidgeting,I felt a different diversion was needed to a song , so announced I would tell them a love story. I doubt if it was ever told but the explosion of hysterical laughter which resulted so intrigued our neighbours they set up a questioning banging on the wall wondering how any humour could be found in the terrifying raid we were enduring.
Of course our snug shelter wouldn鈥檛 have saved us from a direct hit, but at least it was comfortable and I recall it with some nostalgia. There were no such happy memories attached to St. George鈥檚 school鈥檚 attempts to succour its pupils, however; all was confusion and ludicrous mismanagement even to my tender mind. Our first instruction regarding safety in case of a raid was to get under our desk, and from this safe haven we watched in great amusement our white-haired teacher, Miss Magee, try to construct a shelter under her tall desk using a blackboard. She needed the help of two boys to balance this between her high-backed chair and equally high desk, and then she tried to retreat underneath. We little girls giggled together, but I think I was suddenly moved, or intrigued, by the unexpected evidence of fear in our normally strict teacher. We had further evidence of this which we wickedly encouraged later when the whole school was marched to the 鈥渞eck鈥� where several brick shelters had been put up for our safety. This reck was high, rough ground, almost like a sandy cliff on the side of the main road. The shelters held a considerable number of people in two long passages divided by a wall. There were concrete benches lining outer and inner walls and cubicles at the end which must have contained some sort ..
of sanitation.
On the afternoon of this air-raid exercise we straggled along the road in our class formation, and despite being the youngest in the junior school we ended up in the furthest shelter. It was dark, damp and already smelled unpleasant, and we girls fidgeted daintily and tried to ignore the boys鈥� delighted attempts to pinch our legs or worse, and scuffle with each other, but at last we were allowed to exit. Again we were last, the rest of the school weaving smartly back over the bumps of grass, while a harassed Miss Magee tried to organise her charges and her hair into some sort of order. Barage balloons were anchored in nearby Liskeard docks and as we looked upwards it seemed that tiny figures were floating among them.Did we really believe this?I don鈥檛 know now , but I and a fair-haired girl-friend,and two pinching boys with fat legs under short pants started pointing and calling to Miss Magee that German parachutes were descending. The effect was almost better than that! With barely a glance at the sky the terrified woman began screaming and lurching towards the end of the school crocodile which she succeeded in turning into chaos. Gone was the easy-ozey ramble school-wards, instead everyone for himself: children and teachers ran pell-mell into the nearest shelters. Mercifully the Headmaster, Mr Galleon, succeeded in pointing out that the 鈥減arachutists鈥� were part of the paraphanelia of the balloons, weights perhaps hanging down?. We were in no danger of an invasion from the Wallasey skies!

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