大象传媒

The first shelters I remember being built in Hull were constructed of sandbags piled around a wooden frame. There were a couple of escape hatches in the roof, duck boards on the floor and wooden forms around the inside. We played in these smelly edifices, entering the door at one end and exiting via the escape hatches in the roof.These and subsequent brick shelters were placed in terraces and roadways.Little boys and dogs found them very convenient to pee in I remember.

It was proved in hindsight that these types of shelter provided little protection from bombs,shrapnel and flying debri maybe, but the fact that they concentrated forty or fifty people together caused more casualties when they suffered direct hits or near misses.People would have been better advised to have stayed in their own homes under the stairs or in the later issued Morrison shelters.The semi dugout Anderson shelter was a none starter as most of the people excepting those on the The North Hull Estate only had back yards.

The brick built shelters had their escape hatches in openings in the walls which were blocked off with massive loose concrete blocks which you were intended to push out if the doorway became blocked.We used these shelters until Dad reinforced under the stairs with timber. It was very cramped with only enough room for Ma and myself, Dad had to stay outside ,sometimes he stayed in bed during the raids probably anaesthetized by the few pints he`d had earlier.

During our street shelter period I remember a headlong dash into one dim oil lamp lit refuge where people were packed in tight.In my haste I managed to put my foot through the celluloid frontispiece of a baby`s gas mask,efectively destroying it,luckily the child wasn`t in it.These masks were designed to envelope the whole baby who would peer through its celluloid window, whilst it`s parent pumped air into the rubber bag via a bellows and gas filter.As could be expected the mother wasn`t very pleased and I felt guilty, imagining the poor baby expiring in a gas attack.

Luckily the Germans never dropped gas bombs, so the gas warning rattles and gas indicating boards were never used.The boards nailed to post and coated with a gas sensitive paint were supposed to change colour if gas was present.The wooden rattles were sold in their thousands after the war to football supporters who cheered their teams with them.

What was it like being bombed?,as could be expected, you were frightened a lot of the time,most people dislike loud bangs and explosions and there were certainly plenty of those.Jerry`s bomber engines had a distinctive oscillating throb which you recognized quickly.When you heard this noise a cacophony of bangs from the anti aircraft guns would break out followed by the ever louder `crump`of the bombs falling nearby.Suddenly a tremendous explosion,perhaps from a land mine, designed to devastate whole street areas or a near miss from a bomb.The house shakes, windows rattle and shatter, their broken panes held together with sticky paper in a vain attempt to prevent flying glass.Ceiling plaster falls."Jesus that was a near one, wonder who got it"? Dad says.So it would continue for several hours until the wailing all clear sirens sounded.Emerging from under the stairs you`d stagger up to bed, clearing up left until morning.

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