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Memories of an Air Raid Shelter
By Mrs Joan Parker (nee Clements) (born 29 August 1922) - submitted by her son-in-law, Andrew, at her request. All conditions have been made clear to her, and accepted.

I lived in Derby. I was aged seventeen by three days when war was declared. My father, who owned a shop, went down into the cellar to access what could be done to a lathe and plaster ceiling down there., to make the cellar useable as an air-raid shelter.

On Sunday he collected all the heavy cardboard adverts about the shop and did his best to nail them up to the cellar ceiling to prevent showers of dust that would fall (if we had any blast near by) on anybody using the cellar as an air raid shelter.

On Monday morning we had a visit from some government workmen who came and put up corrugated roofing in the cellar jacked up by six iron stanchions Next morning my father could not open the shop door as the stanchions had raised the floor of the shop. We were lucky to have this done to our cellar as we were the last in our street to receive this protection. This was an alternative to the Anderson (outdoor) or Morrison (indoor) shelters.

My parents put a double bed in the cellar. I must say here that it was a cellar used for food preservation apart from the coal cellar — the days before refrigerators were available widely. When we all slept down there, my parents slept at one end of the bed and my sister and I slept at the other — much like sardines in a can! A watch was always kept on stove and hurricane lamp as a fire precaution.

Father ingeniously made a curtained off section to divide the cellar in two, and with a bucket and sheet of wood created a makeshift toilet. If things were quiet, we went upstairs with a hooded torch and braved the outside toilet. We were used to moving about in the dark because of the blackout. We had no electricity and although we had gas, were anxious to use matches sparingly. Lighting was a hurricane lamp and heat came from a primitive primus stove which had mica side panels. On this mother cooked numerous thing including sausages and mushy peas. Washing up was done in primitive conditions in a bowl with the smallest amount of water.

At the bottom of the cellar steps we had a kitchen table. As soon as tea was over we hurriedly washed up and prepared a tray with crockery, tea and food which we then took down and placed on the table. Father, humorously, hung a sign on the wall above the table which read ‘Café now Open’ on one side and ‘Café Closed’ on the other. This he religiously turned round each time we went down the cellar and reversed it when we came up — done in all seriousness!

If a siren was sounded at night, he would leave mother and sister and I, and join other senior men in the street where he was leader of the ‘fire prevention street party.’ Their job would be to douse any incendiary bombs that may drop before they caused much damage. The night the street was strafed he dived into the ground as the bombs came down and had to receive first-aid as he took all the skin off his leg. Nothing more serious though.

On night during a bout of bronchitis and asthma my mother gave me some hot coffee and I asked what she had put in it as it seemed to relax me. My father had laced it with a tot of the ‘street party’ rum ration.

The mattress had to be hauled up the cellar steps each day and aired in front of the fire or, if it was summer, outside in the sunshine. Occasionally we slept upstairs and would only go down the cellar if the sirens sounded in the evening of the raid.

If the sirens sounded in the daytime then dad always stayed upstairs in the shop — he had a living to earn! He was a shoe maker and repairer, and also sold other commodities. He had contracts with the government to repair the Force’s boots. There was always a deadline for completion of a contract and collection of the boots. Sleep was snatched whenever possible if we had been up for a raid during the night, but more often than not we went to work on time next day, tired or not. I worked regularly eight ‘til eight (two hours overtime each day and no nights off) and half-day Saturdays.

We didn’t do much during an alert. More often than not, we tried to count the planes going over, guess at their direction and wonder who the unfortunate recipients were going to be of that night’s bomb drop.

Unlike Londoners, we did not go down to the cellar immediately after tea we heard that Londoners repaired to the nearest underground station as soon as possible after dark. Usually they had staked their claim to a certain area for each night and other people respected their claim.
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