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Air raid shelters

An impressive shed made from two Anderson shelters in the garden next to ours can be seen in this pic of my dad below.
Half an Anderson shelter could also be used to sledge down a nearby steep hill Sandy Lane, usually about 10 of us on it with many of us receiving cuts from the sharp edges.
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From local enquiries, it seems that details of who was where, had what, etc., were gathered by the Police and Council early in the War. Those having a garden got an Anderson Shelter, those without, A Morrison. Many who lived in high intensity areas were allocated to communal Shelters. Those in Rural or 'low risk' areas were told to use cellars or under stairs cupboards. This advice resurfaced decades later in the 'Protect and Survive' leaflets issued when Nuclear War was believed immenant from the 50's onwards, until the collapse of Communism and the Eastern Bloc in the 80's.
 
Now you've mentioned that Pete I seem to remember something in a 1980s information film about using a Morrison shelter. At the time I remember thinking what a useless load of twaddle! Would do no good whatsoever in the event of nuclear attack. Who were they trying to fool?

Phil, what a magnificent model in the the photo of your dad in post #81. I assume he built it himself. Viv.
 
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Vivienne14 said:
Phil, what a magnificent model in the the photo of your dad in post #81. I assume he built it himself. Viv.
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From what I remember we were not short of a shelters in our road.
In this wartime photo of another of my dad's model aeroplanes, the top of a brick air raid shelter can just be seen in another garden. The image is a scan from a 3"x2" 'box brownie' photo so quality is not good.
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Some info about the model is posted here
https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=44591&p=537178#post537178
 
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A dismantled Anderson shelter. I remember having some of the long panels sitting in our garden on their sides like this for years and years, even into the late 1960s. Kept 'just in case' perhaps? Mind you, they'd have been a devil to get rid of. I expect the rag and bone man eventually took them away. Viv.

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I have mentioned in other posts that I still have an underground Anderson. This house used to be a shop and the shelter was shared with next-door too, so it is larger than usual. Unfortunately the previous owners filled it with rubble when they extended the house. I tried, in the past, to explore but it's so dangerous. It used to have a little wooden ladder down but it has rotted. I've got a wire mesh over the entrance to stop the Grandchildren trying to get in! The doorway is quite narrow but my Husband says "You'd squeeze down there if the bombs were dropping!" He is older than me and remembers bombs, thankfully I was born after the War!
rosie.
 
There was a large public underground shelter on the central reservation of Fox Hollies Road, opposite Hall Green Church. It would have been filled in I guess after the war. I wonder if there are any traces of it beneath the surface? The reason I know about it is because I used to go to the Hall Green youth club which was actually held down in the air raid shelter, after the war was over. A stage had been erected at one end and we often took part in amateur musicals etc. there. Later on the club was moved to the church hall. The rev Chatterton was "in charge". I used to enjoy playing snooker in the back room.

Philm
 
I wonder if there is a list of extant brick built public air raid shelters the same as the list of WW2 pill boxes which I believe are considered as listed buildings. There must be hundreds of public shelters which have been simply buried under tons of soul rather that go to the cost of knocking them down. If there is not such a list, then I think that there should be such a list.
 
The air raid shelter we had at the bottom of the garden suffered from ground water seepage , hence needing a small sump in which to insert a bucket. Now that's rising damp!!!
 
And of course they'd eventually become very rusty. Our dismantled one was very rusty, with rough edges. Not the sort of thing you'd should have lying around with young children climbing all over it. Eh, the good old days. Viv.
 
Apart from the outdoor Anderson shelter, there was also the 'indoor' Morrison (Herbert Morrison ?) shelter which consisted of a large steel table which you had to assemble and it replaced your dining room table, during the air raid you all got under the table , there where 5 of us, Mom and Dad and my 2 younger sisters and my self (aged 10), it was quite a squash. I often wondered what the criterion was for who got what, could not be a lack of garden as we had quite a lengthy garden, just moved to Shirley in early 1939. Eric
 
Thanks Eric for mentioning the Table Morrison Shelter, another important shelter. For those unfamiliar with the shelter here's some info :

Table Morrison Shelter designed by John Baker, named after Minister of Home Security, Herbert Morrison:

Shelters came in kits which could be assembled (bolted together) in the home. They were 2 metres long, 1.2 metres wide and 75 cm tall. It was designed to be slept under at night and used as a table for the rest of the time
it had over 350 parts, but mainly consisted of a steel top (like a table top) and wire mesh sides (one of which could be lifted open and acted as the door. It wasn't designed to survive a direct hit from a bomb, but was effective at protecting people from the effects of a bomb blast. 500,000 shelters were made and they were given free of charge to families who earned less than £350 a year.

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Viv.


 
Alfred Moss - the father of Stirling Moss - designed an earlier version of the Morrison Shelter. Wonder if anyone had one (apart from the Moss family - assuming they had one). Viv.

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My best friend, Isabel Instone who lived in Vicarage Road, Handsworth, had both a Morrison shelter in her living room, plus an Anderson shelter in the garden. It wasn't a very big garden if I remember. I can remember playing in both shelters after the war. My family had neither as we had a hotel which had large cellars, and our family and the guests used to shelter in these during an air raid.
Judy
 
Viv, do not remember any mesh, perhaps our Dad did not bother to put it on, otherwise it was exactly like pic, Mom had to put 2 table cloths on, one was not big enough. I wondered what happened to it after the war, supposedly collected by some government department. Eric
 
I don't remember the shelter in place, but do remember sheets of mesh (about 1-1.5 inch or so mesh) in the garden that must have been part of it
 
Nice to see the photo of the air raid shelter in College Road, that was one of the ones I had in mind, thank you Dave M. One thing that I omitted from my original post was that that it would be important to get these sites photographed.
 
The aftermath of a raid in August 1940 which damaged Anderson shelters in Oldnow Road, Small Heath. Viv.

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Reading these posts made me think ................. as my Mother was a pregnant widow in 1940 who would have erected her Anderson shelter?
 
Most probably your mom's neighbours Rowan. With closer communities back then I expect there were many expectant mothers on their own with husbands away at war. Or maybe the job was allocated to a particular group such as firemen ? I remember seeing a photo of a grounp of women being instructed in how to build a shelter, so maybe women banded together to do it too. Viv.
 
Vivienne14 said:
Most probably your mom's neighbours Rowan. With closer communities back then I expect there were many expectant mothers on their own with husbands away at war. Or maybe the job was allocated to a particular group such as firemen ? I remember seeing a photo of a grounp of women being instructed in how to build a shelter, so maybe women banded together to do it too. Viv.
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Hi All,

If I remember correctly the anderson shelters began to be distributed just before the war started.
It was more than a one man job to ercct them so small groups of neighbours got together erect them. Each household was responsible for seeing that their shelter was erected not that anyone in authority came and checked. Neither was it compulsory to have a shelter.

Many people went through the war without a shelter of any sort. If your house was hit and you were in it bad luck. However many shelters received direct hits. More bad luck.
 
WE were issued with the 'steel table' Morrison shelter, this would also have been difficult to assemble for disabled, elderly or pregnant women, but there was a very strong community spirit then and help and assistance was always on hand. Eric
 
Thank you all for your replies. I don't think we had a Morrison shelter but I know we had an Anderson because there is a photograph of me stood outside it.

I do recall that Mother had a babies gas mask, she kept it in the coal shed many years later looked a ghastly thing!! it would have been for me as my brother is older than me and was evacuated to Blackwell Court in 1941.

thank you all again
 
image.jpeg This photo shows an unidentified Birmingham street which was severely bombed during WW2. (Photo from the Shoothill site). All around is debris, except for the Anderson shelter. This one certainly looks like it did the job it was intended to do. But if there had been occupants of the shelter, would they really have survived the blast/heat etc? Viv.
 
Vivienne14 said:
View attachment 106233 This photo shows an unidentified Birmingham street which was severely bombed during WW2. (Photo from the Shoothill site). All around is debris, except for the Anderson shelter. This one certainly looks like it did the job it was intended to do. But if there had been occupants of the shelter, would they really have survived the blast/heat etc? Viv.
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There appears to be another shelter to the right although its facing the other way. The occupants of both were probably lucky survivors.

Simon
 
The question is where did the bomb(s) actually fall. The damage to the whole row of houses looks like blast damage to me rather than a direct hit. If so the bomb must have exploded off picture to left which would probably have been a disaster for the occupants of the shelter.
 
Thanks Simon and David. It looks to me that there's no door to the shelter and I did wonder if it had been blown in. Let's face it, nowhere was safe in reality and a shelter could only offer limited protection. Viv.
 
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