Mike's wartime shelters

Apart from the strengthened cellar I mentioned earlier there were three other shelters I got to know well during and after the war.

The first was an Anderson shelter made out of corrugated iron and buried in the garden to about half its depth with an open doorway and a blast wall in front of it. As a young boy it was a great thing to play round, we made cardboard wings which strapped to our arms and tried to fly from the top of it. The only other thing I remember of it is that on the first raid we had after it was built my mother refused to enter it as there was a frog in it. While we kept the frog company Mum sat outside the entrance for the whole of the raid.

The second shelter was at Granny’s in Hastings it was known as a Morrison shelter and was inside the house consisting for all the world like a sheet steel dining table with strong wire netting on three sides. When the siren went off the family would climb into it. Granny’s maid and I would go up to a observation area she had on her roof and watch the flying bombs coming over mainly they flew past us on their way to London but occasionally when we heard a motor stop we would dash down stairs and dive in on top of the family.

Just after the war a few public shelters remained one I remember was in a park on my way home from school a heavy brick built affair that would have only protected you from a light attack. However it was open and it is where I learnt to smoke and at 9 years old I told my Mum I’d given up smoking!