大象传媒

I was nearly 8 years old when war was declared in September 1939.I lived with my parents and older brother in a large house on the Coventry Road in Small Heath,opposite the St.Benedict church. This was where my sister had held her wedding reception when she got married in 1938 before going to live in Wolverhampton.

Our house had 4 bed rooms and an attic which had 2 more rooms, the largest bedroom was a dormitory for three trainee men from the training centre in Small Heath where they were learning Carpentry and Plumbing. One of the attic rooms was occupied by an American lady who was my nanny. She was classed as an alien in those days and had to report to the police station every month with her passport, but when the war started this was changed to every 2 weeks.(I tell my grandchildren that I was brought up by an alien!) The back bedroom was where my father had his printing press and ran his part time printing business called the Victory Press, and in the front room down stairs he had a ex-cinema 35mm sound projector on which he would show us films on Saturday nights. When the blackout started the government asked people to invite other people into their homes to get them off the streets at night. My father printed some leaflets inviting anyone interested to come in to see a film on the next Saturday night, and hung this on the gate post for anyone to take. Eight people turned up on the night and settled down with a cup of tea to watch the film, about an hour later the door bell rang, my mother opened the door and two policemen walked in and stopped the film show, they took the names of everyone there and told them to leave the house. The fire brigade was called to check if there was a fire hazard due to the inflammable films used, there was not, as the projector was screened by a fire proof panel, my father was taken to court and fined 拢2, and was told that had he handed out the leaflets by the gate, and not hung them up he would not have been raided and fined, needless to say he did not bother again.
My father was a postman at the Small Heath office. He started working there in 1920 after he had recovered from the wounds he had received in the First World War during the battle of the Somme in 1916 and the battle of Ypres in 1917 when he was also gassed.
When WW2 started he was concerned that there may be a lot of bombing in the area where we lived due to the closeness the B.S.A and the Singer Factory, which were only a short distance away from our house, so early in 1940 we moved in to a house and shop in Grange Road, Small Heath. The men trainees had been called up, so we only needed a smaller place, my father installed his printing press in the shop and used to open for business in the afternoons when he finished work. At the back of the house was a large yard that had been concreted over, so when the Anderson shelter arrived a few days after we moved in my father and friends had to break up the concrete and dig a three foot deep hole to put it in. Afterwards the soil dug out of the hole was put back on top of the shelter and my father built a concrete sloping roof on top, so that any incendiary bombs would slide down and not burn through the roof. Inside we had a small bunk bed for me, and a bench seat for the family to sit on. We also had a battery-powered light and a paraffin heater. We spent nearly every night in there from the beginning of September 1940.
When I walked to school in the mornings, we would walk through the park and pass the Barrage Balloon and the men looking after it. There were wire cables attached to a large winch and ropes tied to parts of the balloon with sand bags on the other ends to stop the balloon blowing about in the wind. Sometimes during the day we would see a balloon floating free across the sky looking like an Airship, other times we would see a Spitfire chasing a Messerschmitt which would be trying to shoot down the balloons prior to an bombing raid, it was a bit dangerous when this happened, because a dog fight would start and stray bullets would be coming down, so it was always a good idea to find shelter in a doorway or down a shelter if possible, until they had gone away.
We would be let out of school at 3pm so that we would be home before it got dark, as it was very difficult to see in the blackout, the roadside kerbstones, lampposts, gate-posts and house numbers, were painted with luminous paint, which would glow pale blue in the dark, lots of people would wear a disk on their coat which would glow, this helped to avoid bumping into each other in the total darkness, only very dim torches were allowed to be carried, in case someone tried to use one to signal to enemy aircraft. All vehicles and bicycles had to have hoods with slots in them fitted to their lights, so it was difficult for the drivers to see pedestrians, and sometimes even were they were going on the unlit roads.
A public underground shelter was built under the children's playing field across the road from our house and my father was made the Shelter Warden and was responsible for making sure the shelter was open and habitable. One night in November 1940, I heard the sound of an aircraft, which I recognised as a German plane. My father said it couldn't be as the sirens had not sounded. A few seconds later there was a screaming sound and a loud explosion when a bomb exploded about 600 yards away, and then the sirens started.
This was the beginning of the blitz of Birmingham. For the next few hours we had bombs falling all around us, as the area was surrounded by lots of road junctions, the intention was to cripple the transport system by blowing up the roads. The picture house and pub plus lots of houses were destroyed that night in the Green Lanes Road. In the morning we could see the sky glowing a bright red over the city. It seemed as if the whole of the town was on fire, so my father decided that it would be better if we went to stay with our sister in Wolverhampton for a couple of nights, until the bombing eased, so after arranging for my nanna to stay with my father's parents in Monica Road, we made our way into town, which wasn't easy as the were very few buses running due to the damaged and blocked roads. When we got into the town we had to pick our way over the dozens of fire hoses, and rubble on the ground, and find our way through the streets passed burning buildings.
We walked through the Bull Ring and saw the damage to the market hall, where before the war I used to go with my dad on Saturday nights to buy the Sunday joint, and a large bag of sweets, which cost one shilling. We also used to have some hot baked potatoes from the man with the oven on his hand cart. In the hall were lots of stalls and cages with monkeys and other animals in, there was also a very large clock with men statues which used to move and strike the bells every quarter of the hour. We were told that when the hall was bombed some of the animals escaped and were running around the streets in terror. We had to find out if there were any buses running to Wolverhampton. We did find one after about 2 hours, and arrived at my sister's house about 7pm. As they were not on the phone they were very surprised to see us, but managed to find us some food and somewhere to sleep, we stayed there for two days,
On the Saturday morning we made our way back to our house in Birmingham. When we arrived we had a shock - a 500 lbs. bomb had landed in the entrance to the public shelter opposite our house leaving a massive crater in the road. Our shop and house had been caught in the blast so there were no windows and only part of the roof left, had we not gone away for a couple of days, my father could have been killed by that bomb, we were told that some of the people in the shelter were killed, we saw lots of the people in the area pushing hand carts with their few belongings on, trying to find somewhere to stay. We went to see if my fathers parents were safe, and then he went to see if he could find someone with a van to help us move some of our furniture to a safe storage place for a few days. We then returned to Wolverhampton for a few days, but eventually stayed for ten years. Life in Wolverhampton was much quieter, with only the occasional air raid. When the sirens went we had to walk about 800 yards to the public shelter. After the all clear (usually about 2am) we would be invited into an elderly ladies house for a cup of tea before walking home. The only close shave we had was when a bomb went over the shelter and landed about 400yards away in some gardens, doing very little damage.
We had a couple of visits by the gas mask test van, over the next 12 months, all of the people in the area were told to attend, to have their gas masks checked, they then had to go into the van, where the doors would be closed and tear gas would be released, we then had to stay in there for about 5 mins. to see if they were working o.k., the children thought this was great fun, afterwards the men would let us go into the van without our masks on, to see how badly the effects of the gas was on our eyes.
My brother in law, was working for Hobsons Carburettors, designing fuel systems for military aircraft this was secret war work and he was exempt from the forces, so he joined the Home Guard. Their H.Q. was at Park Hall about a mile away from our house. He was a lieutenant, in the 23rd.battalion, our house was surrounded by fields and just a few hundred yards away were the remains of a First World War Rifle range complete with mechanical target holders. The Home Guard cleaned these up and got them working again so on occasional Sunday mornings rifle firing practice would take place and afterwards the rifles would be handed in at our house for cleaning, before being collected by lorry and take back to the H.Q. I found Sunday afternoons great fun helping to strip and clean the guns, (little did I realise how useful this would be, when I did my National Service in 1950 as I knew more about the Lee-Enfield rifle than the instructor did!). One of the men in the H.G. was a chemist and he used to make a small smoke bomb, about the size of a tennis ball, with a flat area with a striker pad, when this was rubbed with sand paper it would ignite, these were used on manoeuvres as hand grenades. Some of these manoeuvres would take place in the local streets, another battalion from a different part of the town would act as the enemy force, our local men would be hiding in gardens, behind the walls, and hedges and would be wearing green lapel markers, the enemy would wear red tags, so I would ride around on my bike to locate the enemy troops, and then alert our men and keep them up to date as to the whereabouts of the enemy, as there were no means of communication with the other groups in the area, I used to take messages from one group to another, which proved very useful when an attack was imminent.
When the air raids were on the German bombers would drop silver tape to confuse the radar signals, we would then collect this and use it to make room decorations for Christmas.
At Christmas time my brother in law's mother would come over from Birmingham to stay for a couple of days, and would bring with her a large food parcel, which had been sent to her by a friend in Canada. This would be packed with sweets, chocolates, biscuits, comic books and various other goodies, which were very welcome in the days of rationing.
My father could not be transferred to the Wolverhampton post office, so at 4am.on week days he had to cycle to Birmingham, through the city centre in the air raids, to get to work for 6am. He would then do 3 postal deliveries and 3 collections during the day, finishing at 3pm. And then cycle home again all for 拢6 per week. One night when cycling through the city he saw a mine hanging on a telephone line, and had to ride around to find someone to report it to.
Later in the war the Americans arrived in Wolverhampton and we would be given chewing gum, something we had not had for a long time, the air raids had ceased and with the double summer time, the days would be light until 11pm.
The area of sky over our house was the assembly point for the British bombers, when they were going on raids to Germany. One night we counted 42 Lancasters forming into a formation, the sky seemed to go black, and the drone of the engines was very loud. There was also a lot of activity on the night before D. Day, of course we didn't know that it was then, but we did notice that all of the American soldiers had gone away from the town, but there again we didn't know why.
Food was still in short supply, so we dug up the front garden and planted potatoes. The large rear garden was also planted with more potatoes and all sorts of vegetables, to keep us well fed. Galvanised bins were put on the street corners for people to put their kitchen waste in, to help the farmers to feed their pigs, our milk and bread was delivered by horse drawn carts, but in the winter when it snowed heavily, we had to collect them from the shop about a mile away, sometimes going through 4 foot snow drifts. The winters in those days always had lots of snow and frosts, causing the water pipes to freeze and sometimes burst. But we just put up with it and looked forwards to the end of the war.
V.E. day arrived and we set about making a large bonfire on the field at the end of the road, which attracted a lot of our neighbours. Some had managed to obtain some fireworks which we had not been able to buy during the war years, and we all had a great time and a sing along around the fire.

I often wonder what my life would have been like had there not been a war.

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