大象传媒

This year (2003) whilst on holiday with a party of Americans I was talking to them about the horrors of the 9/11 tragedy when one of them turned to me and asked if I had any experience of war. I said "Well, yes I have." and started to tell them of my life as a child in Birmingham during the Blitz.

I lived with my parents and two brothers in a house in Acocks Green not far from the centre of Birmingham. Birmingham was an industrial city making arms and armaments and was one of the major targets for the Luftwaffe

My father, who had served in the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War was now too old to fight and was a Bank Manager by day and a Firewatcher by night. His job was to walk the streets of the local area looking for incendiary bombs, dropped by the Germans, which had caught in the roofs and guttering of the shops and houses and were setting them alight. He had many scares and near misses including having a shop window blow out just in front of him.

The house we lived in was a large double fronted Victorian house with attics and a cellar. The cellar was to play a big part in our lives during the time we lived there. It had been re-inforced, I am told, to keep us reasonably safe if a bomb was to make a direct hit on our house. This cellar we shared with our neighbours.

During the height of the bombing of Birmingham we spent all of our nights and even some parts of our days in this cellar. I was a very small child at this time and my memory is a little hazy, but it seemed to me that the cellar was always wet, with the white painted brickwork peeling, water trickling down the walls and a musty smell. But above all it was dark and very claustrophobic. We had black iron bunks against the walls. These bunks had only thin mattresses on top of their wire springs and were covered with grey army blankets - very uncomfortable. Each night we would collect the things we needed, nightlights torches etc. and make our way down the steep flight of steps into the cellar to sleep as best we could. To me, aged four or five, this was not at all frightening - I thought it was how everyone lived, but to my Mother, often alone, with her three children it must have been terrifying. We would listen to the sirens going, to the sound of planes and then to the thud of bombs. One night there was a particularly sickening thud and the sound of falling masonry and breaking glass. My poor Mother must have feared the worst. It was only in the morning when we ventured up the steps that we learnt that a land mine had hit St. Mary's Church behind us and the blast had smashed many of our windows and bought down some of our ceilings but at least our house was still standing. I remember admiring the pale pink piles of debris that had been our ceilings.

However life in the daytime had to go on as normal. My Father went to work, my elder brother went to school and my Mother and I went shopping pushing my younger brother in his pram. We trod gingerly through shattered glass, skirted piles of debris and crossed the road when a bomb-damaged house looked too unsafe to walk past. I found this fascinating - houses had had their roofs and sides and fronts blown off, baths and wardrobes hung precariously down and beds and wallpaper were all exposed. I was too young to realise the tragedy of all this and stared intrigued. It never occurred to me to wonder what had happened to the people inside these houses

My Mother had many of her family, including her elderly parents, living in Birmingham and we made frequent visits to them travelling, if we could, on the bus around the city and seeing the damage the persistent bombing had done to the surrounding area. We were never quite sure that their houses would be standing when we arrived. At one time her brother and his family and several friends were homeless and came to live temporarily with us. For a few days we were a family of nineteen including some of my cousins suffering from measles. What a nightmare!

Occasionally at the weekends we would get a visit from my father's sister, Aunt Nell. She was the headmistress of a Junior School and an immensely kind and practical person. She would travel over from Sutton Coldfield, which was largely untouched by the bombs, on the bus making several changes on the way, armed with home made cakes and tarts and on one occasion a new "siren suit" for me. This was an all-in-one garment, hand sewn by her and made in some sort of bright green wool to keep me warm in the cellar. It became my pride and joy - everyone should have an " Aunt Nell".

I can remember the very pretty garden behind our house and I have a picture of myself posing in a liberty dress by some lupins - an idyllic scene. However at the bottom of this garden, over the fence ran a railway line, which the German planes flew up and down, using the line to mark their way in and out of Birmingham. The proximity of these planes and the fact that our cellar had eventually flooded decided my parents that they must find a safer place to live
and we moved to Sutton Coldfield, by our standards a haven of peace. During that short period of the war, 1940/42, many thousands of Birmingham people were killed or injured and tremendous damage done to the city and we felt ourselves very lucky to have survived unscathed.

From these times some very vivid memories stand out - being taken outside to see the glow that was Coventry burning - a barrage balloon on fire - the sound of the sirens - my brother searching for bits of shrapnel to add to his collection - the rattling sound that was said to be incendiary bombs landing on the roof - the cold and the damp but most of all the smell of the cellar and even today a musty smell can instill in me a feeling of horror - perhaps I was frightened after all.

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