大象传媒

I was born in Birmingham in 1932 so that my memories of the beginning of the war are a little bit fragmented. In the summer of 1939 I was despatched, on my own, to the home of my Uncle and Aunt and one cousin, close to my own age, who lived in a village called Burton in Wiltshire. It might be of interest to note here, that I travelled with strangers more or less chosen at random, using his judgement, by my father. He put me onto a train from New Street Station, Birmingham to be met by my Aunt and cousin at Templemeads in Bristol.

Burton was to me a bit of heaven being countryside as opposed to the Birmingham suburb where my family lived. It was where I became a future dedicated country dweller. I remember going to the local church there and collecting multicoloured attendance stamps which we stuck onto a card. My Uncle, although kind enough, was always a grumpy old b....r and would quickly bring us to silence if he wanted quiet. I remember on one such occasion being quiet when he had his ear close up to his radio and listening to someone making a 'very important thing to say'. In retrospect, this might well have been the Prime Minister Chamberlains declaration of war. My Aunt wiped away a tear at the time but we were not told what was going on.

Shortly afterwards I returned to Brimingham where I was met by my father. I asked him what the strange fat things were that I could see floating about up in the air and was told that they were barrage balloons. Afterwards they were always a familiar and accepted sight.

My address was in Heathcliffe Road, Tyseley, Birmingham and was one of a number of terraced council houses. In comparison to modren council houses they were of a very basic kind. To get to the back of these houses, one used an 'entry' which went round each end of the terrace of houses and gave access to the gardens at the rear. Thus, we could go in one end and come out of the other. We used to play in them quite a lot.

At that time I was the eldest of four children, (later five)I had two brothers and one sister. My sister and myself made our own way to school at Acocks Green each day, catching a 'bus from the Warwick Road, halfpenny fare and more often or not walking home. (Some of these practises would not be dreamt of today.)

Both my parents worked basically out of necessity. My father worked at an electric power station and my mother in munitions. (details not known to me).
I remember that when it bagan to get dark, we were called into the house and the 'blackout' was put into place and there we stayed listening to the radio until it was time to be put to bed. If anyone came to the door or if either of my parents had occasion to go outside, then the lights were switched off before the door, when led straight out of the house from the living room, was opened.

There came a time when a number of corrugated sheets of different shapes and sizes, were delivered into the back garden and my father had to dig a hole and construct an Anderson air raid shelter putting the excavated soil over the top of it. When the air raid sirens went off, we all had to get through the little door, my father would close the entrance and we would sit in candle light until the 'all clear' sounded. From my memory, nothing really happened for while. My Dad would sometimes go off to work and have to stay late. When we were all put to bed my mother would ask me to wait until the other children were asleep and then return down stairs to keep her company for a while and to help her should she have to get the ohters up and into the shelter.

An then the air raids started. The sound of bombs making a whistling sound as they fell and a 'crump' as the bomb exploded a distance away became familiar nightly sounds. Mostly the bombing was further off and the noisiest sounds of the night were the guns of anti aircraft batteries and sometimes the familiar throbbing sound of German aircraft.

The air raid shelters were very damp and would need bailing out every now and then. They were somewhat improved after a while by being lined with concrete and with a small sump hole to catch the water and make it easier to get the water out.

It was quite a hobby for young lads to look for shell splinters on our way to and from school or going on errands. I had quite a collection of this 'shrapnel' as it was known to us. I kept mine in a cocoa tin.

One night, my father stood outside the door of the shelter to give us all a little respite to being enclosed in it. The candles were put out and he told us quietly of what he could see. I heard him say, 'Coventry is getting it tonight Kid'. (A pet name he used to address my mother with). I asked if I could have a look and very briefly he allowed me to stand by him and look towards a great red glow in the night sky. I could also see what appeared to me to be fountains of sparks going up much closer than the great red glow. He told me that they were incendiary bombs.

Either the next night or the night after, in his words, it was our turn. The great whistling sounds of the falling bombs seemed to be shorter. My father would tell us all to duck our heads each time we heard one. This we all faithfully did. There were a number of very violent bangs quite close by and the noise of the guns seemed much louder. Then there came a period of relative quiet. Suddenly we heard someone shouting and my father got out of the shelter and started to call to someone. It was, apparently, a local Air Raid Warden. As a result of what was exhanged between them my father said, 'Come on, we've got to get out of here. It is thought that there are some unexploded bombs about.'

I remember as we got out of the shelter, that the immediate ground between it and the house, seemed littered with all sorts of things, mostly broken glass. My father couldn't open the back door to get into the house, it having apparently jammed. We made our way up the garden and into the 'entry' and made for the nearest exit into Heathcliffe Road. That way was blocked by a paling fence and privet hedgerow having been uprooted and pushed against the opposite hedge. We turned around and made our way along the 'entry' to the other way out. This was also blocked by an uprooted privet hedge and fence but this time it had been pushed across the path at right angles to it as might a gate be. My father was able to force his way through and help us, one by one, to the other side of the blockade. As we got through, we trod onto the very loose earth of the rim of a large crater. My mother, who was carrying my younger brother, stumbled and fell down into it. We had to make our way onto the firm ground of the roadway whilst my father went down into the crater and helped my mother and the baby out of the hole.

Gathering us all together, Mother carrying baby, Father carrying the next youngest and my sister and I holding hands, as instructed, we made our way along Heathcliffe Road towards the Warwick Road. Every now and then we were told to duck down as the whistle of a bomb would be heard. Behind the houses on the left of the road there was a factory and it was well alight and gave us plenty of light to see to make our way along. After a few minutes, we eventually reached a brick built public shelter situated on a corner between the Warwick Road and the road leading to Tyseley Railway Station. The interior lights had been extinguished before we were let in and re-lit after the door was closed behind us. We were all safe. The shelter was crowded but someone gave a seat to my mother and the rest of us remained standing between the two rows of seats along the length of the shelter. I remember being offered a drink of water and declining and shortly afterwards asking for one, only to be told off by my father for not making my mind up.

We stayed in the shelter until the 'all clear' sounded and made our way back to Heathcliffe Road. It was getting light. I remember seeing all sorts of detritus scattered across the road such as broken glass, brick ends, clods of earth, roof slates and the like. We reached the point where the crater was the one my mother fell into. There was a strong smell like gas about there. The house at the end of the terrace was all demolished and the bedroom walls could be clearly seen. Closer to home we met some neighbours named Tetley who asked my father if we had seen 'their Frank'. He answered that we had not but after they had passed by I heard him say to my mother that 'Frank' was dead. He had apparently seen a mans leg in our next door neighbours garden as we tried to squeeze past the displaced hedge at the point of the first exit we tried. The Tetleys' lived in the first house of the next terrace along the road and on the opposite side of the 'entry' to the terrace in which we lived. I learned much later that Frank Tetley was a soldier at home on leave who had left their shelter to go into the house to make a cup of tea when the bomb struck.

When we reached our own home, entrance was fairly easily made through the front door which gave access directly into the living room. All the glass in the windows were broken and plaster from the ceilings both downstairs and upstairs had come down onto the furniture and beds.

We hadn't long been in the house when wardens came along the road warning everyone that they should leave since there was a danger that some unexploded bombs may be in the vicinity. My mother and father quickly packed some things, clothes I believe, and we left the house and made our way back the way we came, along Heathcliffe Road.

Without memory of details, I know that we walked some distance to what may have been a school. Passing one or two demolished houses along the way. There were many people at the 'school'. It was some sort of reception centre and it was there that my parents were asked if they had any place that they could make their way to. My mother volunteered that she had a relative, an 'Uncle' (I never did work out the relationship except that it was on my mothers side of the family), who lived near Bromsgrove in Worcestershire at a place called Tardebigge.

The next clear memory, we must all have been very tired by then, was standing with my family in a long queue near New Street Station near Birmingham City centre. Opposite the row of bus stops was Birmingham Market Hall. It was just a shell of outside walls full of piles of rubble and still smoking or steaming. We eventually got onto a number 144 bus which took us out of Birmingham towards Bromsgrove.

At Bromsgrove we changed buses and went towards Redditch. On the way we left the bus, made our way down a steep path onto the tow path of a canal. Some distance down the canal side we came to Reservoir Cottage. My father must have walked the equivalent of twice the distance from the road to the cottage because he had to carry two heavy cases and he did it by leaving one, carrying the other forward and going back for the other. A kind of leap frog system. It was then that he noticed that I had been carrying all day, my cocoa tin full of shrapnel. He asked me what it was and when I told him, he took it from me and threw it into the canal.

It was already dark when we arrived at the cottage and were taken in by Mothers Uncle Jack and his two daughters. We stayed there until after Christmas and then moved to other accommodation which is another story.

Thus we left Birmihgnham for good as evacuees only going back to collect whatever belongings remained which were not damaged or looted.

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