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What year did I become an air-raid warden, so long ago I can hardly remember the thought of bombs falling and dashing to an air raid shelter never quite leave you, all the things that happened are as like yesterday — I became an air raid warden because my father was one, our post was the church hall a couple of hundred yards from the house we lived in and, of course, my mother really did not want me to join the forces as my brother was conscripted as he was going to the University- The training was well organised you were given a uniform and a tin hat, really funny I thought until it got serious, like going through a shelter in a gas mask to see how you managed. I passed so it looked as if I would survive a gas attack and then there was a small chore of getting the and air-raid wardens breakfast ready, this being done at 10pm at night a three inch length of bacon, a little dried egg some bread and butter plus a cup of tea never — using to much tea, as our post was also a post for G.Is to gather for recreation like playing darts and table tennis not forgetting the obligatory gramophone beating out the tune of the day and tea was offered to them — The beginning of the war apart from rationing was easy enough and then the Luftwaffe appeared overhead and bombs became a terrible experience for so many people. I was 17 with the responsible job of when the sirens started to open up the air-raid shelter at the end of the road so with tin hat covering curlers it was a thrice nightly job, not much sleep, babies crying, fifty or more people huddled together, no warmth and never knowing what the daylight would bring, one night was pretty awful, the bombs seemed never ending and after opening up the shelter, myself and two other wardens, my father being one, walked in to the street to see if help was needed, a German plane had crashed onto a couple of houses the sight was horrendous we dashed to find the German pilot lying in the gutter, as we were the first on the scene we tried desperately to drag him clear, flames shooting up to the dark sky, with bricks and mortar crashing around us, he had an Iron Cross pinned to his chest and I wonder to this day who he was, we could not save him and to most people he was a German, our enemy.
(This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from Wyre Forest Volunteer Bureau on behalf of Mary Hadley and has been added to this site with his permission. Mrs Hadley fully understands the site's terms and conditions.)

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