大象传媒

I was 6 years of age when the Second World War broke out on the 3rd of September 1939. I did not know what it meant, but I knew something terrible had happened because all the neighbours in Artillery Street were outside talking over the garden fences. I sat crying, curled up on Granddad Baker鈥檚 armchair in the living room near to the window.

Prior to the war being declared, my mother, together with the four children had been evacuated for a short period of time to Umberslade Hall at Tanworth-in-Arden, Hockley Heath. This was a mansion house in it鈥檚 own grounds with a herd of deer and a huge pool, but we had returned back home to Bordesley before the war started. There were other families there at the same time.

The heaviest bombing raids on Birmingham were from early August 1940 until the end of April 1943, with only an occasional raid afterwards. But it seems to me, as a then a seven year old that they went on forever. I was terrified every time the sirens sounded. Some of the raids were in the daytime and I can clearly remember being in Garrison Lane Park with other children when a German plane dived down and machine gunned us. We saw and heard it approaching and ran to take cover down the steps into the entrance of the public air raid shelter. None of us were hurt.

My most vivid memories are of the whistling sound the bombs made as they were coming down, the noise of the bombs exploding when they landed as well as the noise of the ack-ack guns shooting at the German planes. On top of this you also had the awful smell of smouldering and of burning buildings.

Every night my mother took my two younger sisters, my elder brother and myself down the air raid shelter in Garrison Lane Park. We went down at dusk whether or not the sirens had sounded and came back up in the morning providing the all clear had sounded. The children slept on benches if the noise of the falling bombs did not keep them awake.

On Saturday morning 17th may 1941 we came up from the shelter to find that my father had been killed by the blast of a land mine which had fallen on the house next door. My father and granddad Baker were on the way to the Fire Watching Post at the top of the road when the bomb fell. Granddad Baker was dug out alive as was our dog Gyp. Both lived for a number of years afterwards. I can remember mom and the children being taken to a mobile tea wagon in Artillery Street near to where our house used to be and it was there I heard a voice say 鈥済ive this woman a cup of tea, she had just lost her husband鈥�. Our house and all the houses around it had been almost flattened. My father John Eastlake was just 33 years of age. My mother Ellen was 31 years, a widow with four children, whose ages were 4, 6, 8 and 10. We only had the clothes we were standing in and the only item salvaged from the house was the 鈥榙iddy tin鈥� in which mom kept the birth certificates, insurance policies, and receipts, etc. I still have that tin today.
Because we did not have anywhere to go, we went to live with my grandfather Charlie Elliman and his son Ted, mom鈥檚 youngest brother, in the maisonettes on Coventry Road, just below the Kingston Cinema.

This same bomb also killed three members of the family who lived next door but one, Mrs. Lily Anderson (60 years), daughter Annie (22 years) and grandchild Pamela Jordan (5 months). Pamela鈥檚 mother survived, although badly injured. My mother said there was also another unknown man鈥檚 body found, but he was never identified.

You never appreciated it, until it is too late, what sacrifices your mother makes to keep the family together and clothe and feed you, but that is life. My mother did remarry later and had two lovely boys, John and Barry.

Two months before the bomb fell, we went to Jerome鈥檚 for a photograph to be taken because we were expecting Dad to go into the forces. It is the only photograph of the family taken all together. It shows Leslie (age 10) John (age 33) June (8) Ellen, (31) and on the front row Brenda and Barbara (4)

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Anastasia Travers a volunteer with WM CSV Actiondesk on behalf of June Eastlake and has been added to the site with her permission. June Eastlake fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

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