大象传媒

It was early in 1939 that a friend and I attended a demonstration of an incendiary bomb in a school playground. The intensity of the heat melted away the playground surface. If you placed water on it directly, it would increase the heat even more!! We were then shown a stirrup pump, which was hand controlled. The pump operated a jet of water to extinguish a fire; it also had a lever which sent a fine spray of water on the fire to keep it contained. The demonstrator said that a German bomber could carry over 2000 incendiaries!

During the summer of 1940, we had several air raids when the incendiaries were dropped on Birmingham. It was at this time when my friend and I used a stirrup pump to put out a house fire. It was in a neighbour鈥檚 attic that the bomb had settled. We must have looked a bit queer because our mothers were worried about shrapnel falling from aircraft shells, so they made us wear tea cosies on our heads! We did contain the fire and eventually saved the house from being burnt down.
The next day the rent collector came to collect the rent from the houses in the area (very few people owned their house). The rent on average was 10/6d per house (52p these days). The rent man was so pleased that we had saved the house from burning down, he gave my friend and I 2/6d each (about 12p these days). Also, various neighbours collected money for us for saving adjoining properties.

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Cheryl Phillips of the County Heritage Team on behalf of Mr G Van Baars and Mr E Briscall and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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