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15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

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The Bombings Still Continued

by WMCSVActionDesk

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Archive List > The Blitz

Contributed by听
WMCSVActionDesk
People in story:听
Norman Bailey, Lily Bailey, Mr. Poston
Location of story:听
Birmingham
Background to story:听
Civilian
Article ID:听
A5168946
Contributed on:听
18 August 2005

Another time we decided to stay at home when the bombing started again. Mr. Postan, our next door neighbour, knowing that we had not gone out to a shelter fetched us into his house. Just as we had settled down the bombing started and because we were at street level the noise was horrendous. Mr. Poston made us get under the table, I think this was a Morrison shelter. He was shaking with fear and crouching as far inside the shelter as he could. Strangely enough, during the whole of the bombing I never seemed to be frightened, neither did my sister Lily, when the all clear sounded, Lily and I went back into our house, at least Lily did, I was too busy looking for shrapnel. Suddenly I spied a piece by the wall and went over to pick it up, I soon dropped it, it was still very hot (we would take our collection to school to show it off and to see who had the largest piece). Whilst waiting for the shrapnel to cool off the other neighbours started drifting back telling stories of the bombing. It seems that a string of bombs had landed along Clissold Passage, Roseberry Street and Clissold Street and people had been killed or wounded, it was told that one woman had had her head blown off.

Going to school next morning we saw the damage to the houses in Clissold Street and in particular the sweet shop, halfway between Prescott Street and Crabtree Road where we would buy our sweets, if we had any money. It had all its windows blown out, the sweet and chocolate bars were strewn no the pavement and in the Horse Road. No one touched them, in those days you did not touch what did not belong to you. It was like this for a couple of days and then we were asked it we would like the contents that had been cleared off the pavement, and thinking that they were sweets we gladly said yes. No wonder nobody touched them, they were only dummies, blocks of wood made to look like bars of chocolate and other types. Still we had what we wanted and afterwards we would play shop with them, after a while we gave these bits and pieces to the girls.

By this time we noticed that the windows had been blown out the Lamp Works factory next to our walkway and upon peeping in we could see that they were making shells. Large brass ones for the big guns and other types, we jumped down quickly from the bars that were outside the windows knowing that we could get into trouble for looking in.

It was apparent, during this heavy bombing period, that the anti aircraft guns were not firing. We soon learned the difference between bombs and anti aircraft fire. Birmingham was up in arms over this, stories flew around that we had run out of ammunition or that we were being left on our own. I remember clearly that people were very angry at being left defenceless, why were the bombers being allowed to fly over without being attacked? We found out later that fighters with a new device for seeing at night had been up to try and shoot the bombers down, to no avail it seems because two or three nights later the ack-ack guns started up again.

After many nights of getting up, Lily and I decided to stay at home, even though the air raid siren had gone. It got so that we even stayed in bed one night because we had so little sleep, suddenly there was this great explosion, I threw the bedclothes over our heads, even though the windows were plastered with brown strips of paper, they burst in.

We still stayed in bed, we could not put a light on, light a candle, or shine a torch (I don鈥檛 think we had one in those days anyway, a torch that is). We just had to stay there until the all clear was sounded. There was glass everywhere; if we had tried to get out of bed we risked cutting our feet badly. We found out the next morning that a bomb had hit the Belmont Chandelier Factory and had blown a very large tank from this factory, over the roofs of the factory and the houses; it landed in the other factory across the road. We had the job clearing the glass up from all the rooms, and then nailing blackout curtains to the windows until they were repaired. I think heavy cardboard was nailed up after this and we had to have the gas light on most of the day as the house was all in darkness except when the door was opened. Looking at the bedclothes when we were making up the bed alter that day, we found that a piece of glass had ripped or cut just where our faces had been. If I had not thrown the clothes over our heads no doubt it could have slashed us badly on the face. It was as well that I had good reflexes.

After this the nights seem to become quieter although the sirens continued each night, they started later and later as the evening went on.

It was also towards the end of the war that my mates and I were hanging around the canal that we came across firemen practising with their auxiliary Fire Tender, we asked if we could hold the hose when the water was coming out, this they did. Fortunately for us they kept it at low pressure and one of the firemen held the hose also otherwise it would have thrown us all over the place, the force was terrific in our little hands.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 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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