大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War website by Sutton Coldfield Library on behalf of Diana Purnell and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

Perhaps it was the tone of voice but I do remember my mother coming into our house at 184 Gerard Street, Lozells, Birmingham (where I was born) and saying
鈥淲e鈥檝e declared war on Germany鈥t鈥檚 in the papers鈥�. I was nearly four years old. It was 1939. There was a period called the phoney war, but before I reached my fifth birthday we were homeless and had lost everything because the house had been destroyed by a bomb dropped in one of the many air raids to hit Birmingham during the war.

By searching the archives and books in Birmingham Central Library I have been able to piece together some of the events in November 1940 which led to this family disaster. Of course we were lucky as quite a few people were killed and the books I read in the library refer to bodies being dug out of houses in the same district in which we lived.

The archives revealed photographs of bomb damage to Gerard Street and bombing frequency. The photos of bomb damage to Gerard Street carry a date of 2nd November 1940. Bearing in mind the conditions under which these records were gathered, and the fact that photographs were not taken of every piece of bomb damage, due to the steady increase of air raids, some questions in my mind are left unanswered.

That our house was totally destroyed there is no doubt- I remember climbing over the rubble after the bomb had gone off. The bomb disposal squad had tried to defuse it but had run out of time, the clock ticking away. What kind of bomb it was is not absolutely clear and the actual date in November 1940 could be in doubt as there is evidence of another bomb in Gerard Street later in the month. My parents always referred to a landmine that came down in a parachute and became entangled in it, fortunately for us, so that it landed sideways on the kerb and failed to explode. There was no reference to this kind of device on the bombing density maps I had obtained, so I returned to the Local History section of the Birmingham Central Library and looked at two books recommended to me by library staff.(see footnote)

The first bombing of Birmingham according to the sources was on 9 August 1940. Apparently it was an early attempt to seek out the factories of Birmingham. The persistent and serious bombing however started in September, throughout October and almost nightly in November. There are records of 2,5,7,8,11 November when Lozells Road was bombed and right up to 23rd December 1940. It stopped for Christmas apparently but resumed on 1 January 1941.

During the bombing, when the sirens sounded, my mother would dress me in a siren suit- a warm all in one garment (I think mine was royal blue) and we would sit under the stairs as recommended. My father was still with us at home in 1940 working in a factory. He was 38 years old when we lost our home. Before the war was over he would be called up and be serving in the Royal Signals Regiment in Belgium. I remember him coming home on leave to our later house in Nursery Road with his kit bag over his shoulder. He would be 43 years old before demobilization became a possibility in 1945. Always one for a gamble I think he dabbled in the black market both in Belgium and later when he came home!

On the fateful night in question during a raid, a knock came to the door and an air raid warden told us to get out immediately as an unexploded bomb was lying in the street. The story I remember is that the bomb had been kicked by a warden thinking that a German had come down in the parachute.

In Sutcliffe's book on p.35 I found a reference to a Civil Defence report giving the total of bombs in Birmingham during the war as follows:
"Civil defence reported 5,129 High Explosive bombs of which 930 did not explode. In addition 48 parachute mines of which 16 did not explode".
So鈥here were the mines鈥ecorded.

Additionally in Chinn's book on p.108 are details of a naval mine on 20 November 1940 which wrecked Queen's Road, Aston. Chinn says that these devices were carried by parachute and exploded close to the ground to maximise the damage they caused. Also on p.109 he quotes from the diary of one Ernest Price re the raid of 22 November 1940. "Devastating raid on city. Land-mines, bombs and incendiaries on all districts". So all this gives credence to my memory of a land mine doing the dirty deed.

Anyway, on the night in question we left in great haste naturally. My mother grabbed the wrong emergency bag as we rushed out of the house. She always had two bags at the ready, one for work each day, she worked full-time, and one containing the essential documents, family photographs etc. We lost them all when the bomb went off.

After leaving the house, along with other families, we took temporary shelter in a nearby hall. I do not think there were any official shelters at this time and indeed all records show the council had been very reluctant to spend money on them at the start of the war. However, it was soon discovered that this hall had a glass roof and we had to move on.

I have a vague memory of walking a lot that night with the sky lit up by fires and the air full of the noises of falling bombs and explosions. We must have walked from Lozells to Kingstanding where my mother's sister, Aunt Lil and Uncle Frank, lived with their four children, Jean, Sydney, Philip and Betty. We had nowhere else to go and must have stayed there a few days, though we all slept in such overcrowded conditions I can't imagine!
Some time after this we went to stay with a brother of my mother, Uncle Ernie and Aunt Lou. They had one child, Maureen, a bit older than me. She greatly resented my appearance on the scene and used to pull my hair.

We also lived temporarily in Farm Street, Hockley but the bombing got worse and it was very close to the Lucas factory. It was a hovel of a place, back-to-back housing with a wash house and toilet to be shared down the back yard.

There is other evidence of a bomb in Gerard Street later in November 1940 in Chinn's book p.113 and the Birmingham Archives show photos of Hockley bus station totally destroyed on the night of 22 November. That Gerard Street was hit in November 1940 there is no doubt- whether there were a number of bombs is not certain. My memory however is of returning and playing on the site of many bombed out buildings.

Sutcliffe reports (p.37) that the winter of 1940/41 was very cold and there was an increase in respiratory disease. Shelter life as it began to emerge was damp and insanitary. Education was severely disrupted and there was an increase in juvenile crime. Also due to blackout an increase in motor accidents.

There was further bombing to Lozells Road in 1942. The Lozells Picture House was struck on 16 August and I have photos of this damage. It was restored and later I would go to the Saturday morning children's film shows.

We moved from Farm Street to Nursery Road where we settled for the rest of the war and my childhood. Raids continued and we used to share a shelter built by the local authority at the back of the terraced house. These were damp brick affairs with wooden benching. I used to sing songs to the people while the bombs dropped around us. I do not remember fear- it was just a normal way of life.

The house had no electricity, lighting was by gaslight and fires were open coal fires. There was no bathroom and the toilet was outside. The gas mantels for the lighting were very delicate filaments. After the war we were converted to electricity. The house was never really warm and it was very sparsely furnished. During the war one had to qualify for coupons to buy so called utility furniture but as we had lost everything my parents never really recovered financially- they had no reserves.

Years later I asked my mother why she had not sent me away as an evacuee and she simply replied that she had decided that if we were to die, we would die together.

As a postcript, one of my mother's brothers, uncle Bill, served in the Navy during the war. At the beginning of the war he helped to rescue the British Army escaping from Dunkirk. Later he served in submarines and he told me that once he was in the South China Sea and the submarine became stuck on the seabed in sand. Only the skill of the engineers and captain managed to dislodge the vessel and allow them to resurface.

And finally, a personal note about my parents. Like many couples they were separated for long periods. It seems my father had a relationship with a Belgian woman because after the war she paid a visit to England and he engineered a visit to my Uncle Bill's house with me so that he could meet her. My uncle was of course none too pleased about this and my mother was informed.

References:
1) History of Birmingham Vol.3 Birmingham 1939 - 1970 by Anthony Sutcliffe and Roger Smith, published for Birmingham City Council by Oxford University Press 1974
2) Brum Undaunted, Birmingham during the Blitz by Carl Chinn published by Birmingham Library Services 1996
3) Birmingham City Archives Photo Box ZR4 90-92 shows the bomb damage in Gerard Street.

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