大象传媒

When war started there were not many air-raid shelters available and my father got together with our next-door neighbour to make a shelter in our garden. They dug a big hole about 8 feet deep and about 12 feet long. They found old railway sleepers and sheets of corrugated iron to support sides and form the roof which was then covered with several feet of earth.

This served as an air-raid shelter. Both families would sleep in the shelter at night, and my father used to do conjuring tricks to entertain us.

At the outbreak of war we were all issued with gasmasks. These are shown in many old films and most people will be familair with their shape. I recall that when they first came out they were fitted with only one black filter. Later we had to take them to the local ARP post to have a second (green) filter added. I was told this was because the Germans had got a new gas againstwhich the old filter would not be effective.

On one occasion an incendiary bomb landed near our house and my father had to go and smother it with sand.

My father worked in the electricity industry and because of this he was issued with a special petrol allowance because petrol was strictly weekly rationed and became unavailable for people except for essential work. Along with his petrol allowance he was also given a special headlight for his car which had the letters 鈥淩P/E鈥� cut out so that they would show up at night. So if he had to go out at night to a power station during an air- raid he would be given priority along the road.

He told me that where he was working in Birmingham, there was a sewage works next door and one day someone came in and said there was a big hole at the side of the sewage farm that was next to the railway line which brings in the coal supply to the power station. He went down with two other engineers to have a look before alerting the authorities. To get to the sewage works they had to duck under some railway trucks which were still on the railway line. As they ducked under the trucks the ground rumbled: they froze and laid still as the delayed action bomb exploded and a large amount of concrete showered down. They were saved by the fact that they were still under the railway trucks. Had they of been half a minute earlier then they would probably all been killed.

Another story of the black-out that I remember, that we not only had to black out our windows, but we also had to make sure that we did not show any light at night. During an air-raid in the cities like Birmingham,a smoke screen was put up by burning cans of old oil at night This made filthy black smoke which got everywhere. When we went out we were not allowed to carry torches; we had to wear special luminous buttons on our jackets so that people in cars would be able to see us.

At the end of war the first victory was VE Day and I remember well how everybody got very excited and every street had its own street party with bonfires lit in the middle of the roads. There wasn鈥檛 much traffic about in those days. There was a big fireworks factory in Birmingham which survived the war and all of our parents got a collection together and went up to the factory and bought a huge amount of fireworks, which were still being sold at pre-war prices. We had so many fireworks it was nearly impossible to let them all off.

Throughout the war we were able to go to the cinima where the "Newsreels" showed graphic pictures of the war. (There was no TV in those days). It was towards the end of the war that on won occasion when the newsreel was to be shown my mother covered my eyes and told me not to look. I later found out that some scenes from German Concentration Camps were being shown.

Afet VE day the war continued against Japan. I recall the news of the dropping of the Atom bomb on Hiroshima. No one had any regrets and the general opinion was that we should continue to drop more until they surrended. People considered thay they were getting back what they deserved for the atrocities they had committed.

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