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WWII Air Raid Victims

There used to a thread about air raids and shelters but a search only came up with this one, does anyone mind if it is added to??
 
I lived in Shirley during the war, Cranmore Boulevard to be precise, a reasonably safe place you would have thought, but in 1941 (I would have been 11 years old) we were under our Morrison shelter during a raid on Birmingham , a kind of steel table in the house as opposed to the external Anderson shelter, when a bomb landed in Clinton Rd which ran parallel to our road directly opposite us demolishing a house (we found later there were no survivors) our house was damaged to the extent that the it was uninhabitable and we had to live in a caravan for a time in Earlswood whilst our roof was repaired, windows and doors replaced etc.....Would there be any records of this and who would hold them. I would be interested to know the date, how long we were in this caravan (an old romany type)I believe it was on a farm I remember getting milk from a farm house. My sisters who are younger than me cannot remember anymore than I can after all it was 70 years ago and they were only 9 and 7 years old. Eric
 
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Image~8.jpg

Anderson Shelters were being delivered to homes as early as the spring of 1939.
 
What a marvelous, descriptive photograph, #33,no text needed, says it all, fantastic even the postman is in on this extraordinary sight. The old G E R company scammel 3 wheelers as well, prelude to the first real pointer to the coming war being for civilians as well as soldiers.
 
cookie273uk said:
I lived in Shirley during the war, Cranmore Boulevard to be precise, a reasonably safe place you would have thought, but in 1941 (I would have been 11 years old) we were under our Morrison shelter during a raid on Birmingham , a kind of steel table in the house as opposed to the external Anderson shelter, when a bomb landed in Clinton Rd which ran parallel to our road directly opposite us demolishing a house (we found later there were no survivors) our house was damaged to the extent that the it was uninhabitable and we had to live in a caravan for a time in Earlswood whilst our roof was repaired, windows and doors replaced etc.....Would there be any records of this and who would hold them. I would be interested to know the date, how long we were in this caravan (an old romany type)I believe it was on a farm I remember getting milk from a farm house. My sisters who are younger than me cannot remember anymore than I can after all it was 70 years ago and they were only 9 and 7 years old. Eric
Click to expand...

morning eric...the story of you having to live in a romany type caravan has always fascinated me..i guess it was not easy for the family but at least you all survived to relate your memories to us...
thanks eric..
lyn
 
We have passed over 500,000 hits on our Barra site and nearly 30,000 searches which shows the interest people have in this topic.

www.swanshurst.org and go down the main page to the BARRA logo. Also there are some fascinating interviews with people who lved through the war on the ORAL HISTORY site which is just below it.
 
thats a wonderful acheivement i will be looking at the oral history site later on today..

well done to everyone connected with the BARRA site without it i would not have recently discovered that 2 members of my family died during the air raids and their names are on the war memorial at the bull ring..

lyn
 
ladylinda (post 34) Thanks for info, date a year earlier than I thought so I would have been only 10. My sisters and I thought living in a 'gypsy' caravan a great adventure (innocence of childhood), no doubt my Mom and Dad thought completely different but it was only 2 or 3 weeks. I remember they did not replace windows with glass, we had a kind of celluloid with a fine wire mesh through it, whether this was because glass was not available or because it was safer I don,t know. Just realised that was over 70 years ago !!! - time flies. 3 years later in 1943 my Mom died of cancer, she was also buried in St James church Eric
 
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Hi Stitcher
Another great photo with it's detail. Thanks for sharing it with us.



Regards stars
 
I often wonder what the deciding factor was as to whether you received the external Anderson shelter or the internal Morrison shelter (steel table) which we had in Shirley ??? Eric
 
I'm not sure how the decisions were made, but for some reason we did not have an Anderson shelter or a Morrison shelter. We had to share the next door neighbour's Anderson Shelter and I remember the damp musty smell, candles, the throb of aircraft engines above, and the bomb explosions.
In the morning walking back to our house in my 'siren suit', quick breakfast, get dressed and off to infants school.
Eventually they built us a very sturdy Brick Shelter supplied with bunk beds. It had a 6 inch thick concrete roof, and one night I stood in the opening of it watching a very bright flare slowly coming down, then a bomb followed it whistling down but did not explode.
I suppose I was nearly an Air Raid Victim in WWII because I was asleep under the pantry slab in our house when a bomb dropped on it - luckily it was a small one and only made it through the roof to the bedroom. I was quickly rushed into the Anderson shelter after the bomb had dropped.
The brick shelter took ages to demolish after the war, the people with Andersons could make nice sheds.
Here is a pic of me standing on the brick shelter.
index.php



 
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The link to the Luftwaffe video from their bomber aircraft of a raid on Birmingham in the 1st post of the 'Bombing Brum' topic has been withdrawn for following reasons ....

Luftwaffe bombing raid ..." The YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated due to multiple third-party notifications of copyright infringement.

.
 
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Years ago they used to have to go to ansells brewery for there air shelter ; most people of the locals in aston area
whom either was passing or lived within the close proxcimity of the brewery as it was deep under ground where the coopers
to make the barrells and store the beer barrells it went from one end of the cross up as far as upper thomas street
and portland street it was a vast area ; when we used to go to school we would walk up portland street
passing old mattys radio shop and walk up the old blue brick hill and on the side of portland street ansells side below on the pavement there used to be cast iron windowswe would get down on our knes and screamdown to the men making the barrells
that we seen making the barrells saying hello ; they must have been about one hundred foot below the ground
i wonder when they demolished ansellsdid 5hey fill that deep end below ground in before the car sales took it on ;
i do not know whether that big car company still there on aston cross i know they built new propertys new building but did the fill all that dept in ; it sure was a life saver in the war iot certainly beat the anderson shelter ;
should heaven for bid we had another war what or where would we go now for protection i asked myself ; as its all chemical now aint it ; best wishes astonian ;
 
img099.jpg
I do not know where this one is taken but it must have been quite a usual scene all over the country.
 
Hello Maurice, they appear to have changed the website to www.birminghamairraids.co.uk where everything has to be downloaded first.
I can't do that at the moment as my PC is not behaving!
They used to have a partial burial index for Brandwood End Cemetery but that's gone too!
Best Wishes,
rosie.

Edit... I've just tested that link and it won't work!!
PS.. I had left out one letter Sorry!!
PPS. Even though I have corrected, it the link still goes to the original mistake?
 
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Stitcher said:
View attachment 73267
I do not know where this one is taken but it must have been quite a usual scene all over the country.
Click to expand...
The post by Sospiri has re-activated this older thread.
I do agree they are shelters in WW2 and the style of property suggests London, but others may know differently.
Horse drawn carts were still to be seen for a few years after the end of WW2 due to fuel rationing. I am reliably informed that keen gardeners were out like a shot with shovels for the manure for their gardens. Those were the days, of course, when many suburban folks still grew vegetables. ;)
 
Rosie,

Thanks for that - the link is https://www.birminghamairraids.co.uk/

Alan.

Indeed, right up until 1950 we had a horse-drawn milk cart in Sparkhill. My mother was fond of telling the story that my brother and I used to say to her "Fancy an old woman like you going out in the road and shovelling up horse muck" which she did for Dad's roses, like many neighbours. :)

Maurice
 
Rosie,

I see what you mean - it doesn't give us the list of locations that we used to get from Swanshurst BARRA and the new link to the latter is still dead.

Maurice
 
i cant get onto the swanhurst site either...it was ok a couple of weeks back
 
After WW2 they used the surplus shelters like these as coal sheds for pre-fabs. We had one in our garden as I expect other people did too. We must have had horse drawn deliveries from the Co-op well into the 1950's as I remember them well. I think the grocery was delivered in a van but the bread and the milk came with a horse-drawn cart. I think the coalman also had a horse and the rag and bone man definitely did. And the sun was always shining!
 
I feel that as soon as vans were available and rationing (or maybe dispensations) were in force some of the larger bakeries and food deliveries were able to expand. For instance the original Scribbans Bakery was located in Lodge Road, Hockley but once vans were in use, rather than the horse and cart, they were able to serve the outer suburbs and beyond. I do recall seeing the vans on the Shirley area.
 
My grandparents, Phillip George Bennett and Emma (nee Byfield) immigrated to Victoria, Australia after W.W1 from Birmingham ( Deritend/Aston). But recently, by accident, I came across a website which happened to honour by name, the people killed and wounded in the W.W 2 Birmingham blitzes, one person was, I thought must be my G.Grandmother a Mrs. Sarah Byfield. It was never mentioned during any conversation over the years by my grandmother, as was probably the 'norm' for the older folks, not to mention anything like that to the kids. My G.Grandmother's name was Sarah Elizabeth Byfield (nee West), it is possible that it may not have been her whom was wounded, but the name is certainly not common. The research project on the 'site' was carried out by, I think, a school/university.
Thankyou,
Blessed.
 
hi blessed..ive looked on the barra site and a sarah e byfield was living in handsworth when she was injured...do you know where she was living on the 1911 census because if by chance she was at thornhill road handsworth then yes that would be your gt grandmother

lyn


Name Aged Injured on Injured at Died On Died At
Byfield, Sarah E 22/11/1940 100 Thorn Hill Road, Handsworth
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Name Aged Injured on Injured at Died On Died At
Byfield, Sarah E 22/11/1940 100 Thorn Hill Road, Handsworth
 
Afternoon Lyn - I found a Sarah E Byfield listed on e Roll in 1945 and 1950 at Franklin Terrace. She is on her own so no husband to help identify.
Before that she seems to have lived at 31 Cattell Road with her husband William. I can't find her on 1939 e roll at the moment.
 
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Just found 100 Thornhill Road (Soho Ward) on 1939 e roll and the family is William and Elizabeth Whitehead, Benjamin and Alice Glover and Charlotte Hopkins.
 
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