- Contributed by听
- Genevieve
- People in story:听
- Alvin Mansfield
- Location of story:听
- Hayes, Middlesex
- Background to story:听
- Civilian
- Article ID:听
- A5382137
- Contributed on:听
- 30 August 2005
Our school had a reinforced hall鈥 reinforced with extra timber and sandbags etc. That was the school air raid shelter.
At home we had 鈥楢nderson shelter鈥 鈥 you know with the corrugated iron. We lived next door to my Aunt and instead of having individual shelters we built them through 鈥 we had one tunnel that went through the two gardens, and then the two lots of families went through and congregate together.
I didn鈥檛 really like it still though, as it usually meant getting up at some horrible hour of the morning. Especially in the winter 鈥淪orry Love, there鈥檚 an air raid, we鈥檝e got to go to the shelter鈥. I used to think 鈥渙h, leave me alone to sleep鈥.
Looking back, our house wasn鈥檛 damaged at all. The nearest we got to damage was a V2 rocket fell 300 yards away 鈥 two fields away behind some shops, and all it did was blow down the blackout curtain in my bedroom.
This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Becky Barugh of the 大象传媒 Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Alvin Mansfield and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
See more of Alvin's stories:
- School Shifts
- Just imagine the headlines!
- Keep going, keep going鈥
- The Evacuation Line
- An extra egg
- What an anti-climax!
- In retrospect I was very lucky
- Swaps
漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.
Recommended story
Story with photo