大象传媒

At the outbreak of war , our family lived in a large terrace house, with the grandparents on the ground floor and the rest of us in the four upper rooms.
Grandfather had been retired some time, so the war gave him a lot to do on the 'home- front' enlivening an existence which, for him, in recent years had become somewhat mundane. With the blackout came lots of new problems. We were all issued with luminous badges we could pin to our coat lapels, so that when out after dark - especially on cloudy nights -there was this faint glow to warn of one's approach. We could also buy luminous paint ,so grandfather had a lovely time with that, painting our doorstep, the doorknocker, the area around the keyhole as well as painting extra badges and buttons for our clothing. We youngsters thought this was a great idea and loved going outdoors in the dark to see how much around us was glowing.
An air-raid shelter had been built in our backyard. Some people with gardens had large holes dug and corrugated iron erected over the top to form a shelter. Ours was a brick edifice attached the existing wall, with a very thick concrete roof
Grandfather set about making this shelter as habitable as possible, at the same time declaring that he would never leave his bed to spend any time in it, air-raids or no! If our house was to be bombed, well he would die in his bed; the rest of us would be safe and that was fine by him. His son, my uncle Bill was a carpenter and he was called upon to build a bunk bed to hold two people, or four at a squeeze.
I was 8 years of age at this time and a fervent picture-goer; with my mum and sister. I saved my pocket money to buy the "Picturegoer"magazine, from which I cut out lots of pictures and pasted them on to the bare walls of the shelter During the air-raids I
would shine a torch on the pictures and we all had to guess at the name of the movie and/or the stars involved.
Grandmother always came into the shelter carrying a pre-packed bag containing the insurance policies, birth certificates, etc., and more importantly a flask of tea and a small bottle of whisky to lace the tea with. Strictly medicinal, of course. Poured into a china cup and saucer, she always put some from her cup into the saucer for me to drink, as I used to sit next to her on a tiny stool. She said it "kept the faint off' and I didn't argued with this for I enjoyed sipping this brew from the saucer. No one ever thought it inadvisable for me to be having alcohol at this tender age
My grandparents survived the war and grandfather -true to his word, never ever came into the air-raid shelter during a raid, preferring to stay in bed and take his chance, and as he was fairly deaf! I don't suppose the noise of the anti-aircraft guns bothered him too much.

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