- Contributed by听
- Gwen Stone(neeWilliams))
- People in story:听
- The williams family
- Location of story:听
- 6 Agar Rd West Derby Liverpool
- Background to story:听
- Royal Navy
- Article ID:听
- A1087977
- Contributed on:听
- 23 June 2003
If I had a video of my Family, Father Frank, Mother Mercedes ,Brother Ken and myself(my sister Babs was only two) following the instructions for erecting the shelter much to the amusemant of Neighbours, it would win an academy award for comedy.!
We dug and sodded and sweated till it was in, then My mother took over, she removed the airing cupboard doors which fitted like a glove and made two beds, with lots of chintz and pink distemper it looked really cute.
The First air raid we had fourteen people in it, including the mocking neighbours,who ordered one the moment the all clear sounded!
During the Blitz which I think lasted fourteen days,My mother would fry Bread in drippings and make marmite sandwiches,After the all clear, Ken and I would run out and collect Shrapnel and Incendiary bomb fins.
Ken had two tame white mice which escaped one night in the shelter, he was heartbroken, as they could not be found, that is until we took the shelter tthat has survied
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Message 1 - A1087977 - The Anderson Shelter
I don't suppose you know where I can get hold of the instructions for constructing and anderson shelter, do you?
Message 1 - The Anderson Shelter
Posted on: 06 July 2003 by George Knott
A few days before the declaration of war in 1939 shelters were delivered to people that had requested them by means of lorries and horse and carts. A number would follow each other with all the different sections and parts aboard around the streets of S.W. London, where I lived at the time.
One had to have a garden or similar to put them in and a small payment made, I think.
Workmen were available to erect them unless there were able bodied men, and women too, in the family when they were expected to do the job.
So my father and brother followed the instructions and dug a suitable hole, the soil from which was kept on one side to be placed over the shelter when it was complete to add to the protection.
The sections consisted of six curved pieces of corrugated steel, eight for larger families, which bolted together formed the roof and sides, and six flat pieces for the two ends, the centre ones having doorways cut into them.
The hole was dug about three feet deep approx. and the steel let down into it, which was held together by means of angle iron sections and bolts, a further piece of steel was bolted into position over the hole in the rear wall, this formed an emergency exit.
Most people had a problem making the soil stay on top of the shelter, with its curved shape, the only answer was to plant grass to bind the soil together, but this took a while to work, it's a good job air raids didn't start for about nine months.
Also water gathered in the bottom of the hole, making it unusable, until workmen came around and laid a concrete floor and side walls, after which the shelter remained dry.
Bunks were also delivered, four in number, a bit rough and ready, but comfortable when we got used to them.
Our shelter was never tested, thank goodness, but many were and saved their occupants, suprising really for a comparatively cheap and simple thing, they withstood quite close bomb blasts. My parents used it during the Blitz, I was evacuated at the time, but it was well used during the V1 Flying Bomb attacks by me, who had returned to London, and my father, mother and brother.
After the war it was raised out of the ground and finished its days as a garden shed.
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