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Air raid shelters

If I remember right, ours in Knowle Road, Sparkhill was ripped out just before we moved to Kings Heath in 1950, and the Kings Heath house had never had one. Can't say I was sorry to see the flooded mess go!

Maurice
 
There was a air raid shelter in bONNER HALL hunters road Hockley that took a direct hit it was the home guard HQ
27 October 1940 and another one a hundred yards away on willeetts fruiters
 
Ours was still in the garden when we left our Winson Green house in 1965.
The concrete reinforced structure in my wife's aunt's Handsworth Wood garden is still there as far as I know. Attempts to demolish it proved too laborious.
 
Regarding Air raid shelters ,there used to be one in the play ground of redhill junior and infants school
of redhill road haymills which would have been the bottom end of the playground
I have used the term of used to be because it still could be there ,as one said they are very hard and labourius
to demolish my kids used to go that school many years ago as we lived in speedwell road
at one time you could see from kings road as you come to the coventry road traffic lights
i know its been there for decades even if you walk along the hay mills pub or club you would see it clearly
but in the last 18 months or so they built that play ground wall up higher so you cannot see it as it was right next to the wall
i have always glanced at it when passing either driving or walking but because they built up another foot or two you
cannot see iy on foot but they used it for year to store all there originale tiny desked and chairs from there early years of ever opening that schook must be 1800 i recon
but the only way to veryfye it is any member is passing that way on the buses traveling towards that way
from the sheldon or yardley way on the top deck of one of there buses heading towards the city you will be able to see if its still standing by that wall of coventry road over the school wall Astonian,,,
 
Hopefully someone will be able to let us know Alan. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Viv.
 
Astonian said:
Regarding Air raid shelters ,there used to be one in the play ground of redhill junior and infants school
of redhill road haymills which would have been the bottom end of the playground
I have used the term of used to be because it still could be there ,as one said they are very hard and labourius
to demolish my kids used to go that school many years ago as we lived in speedwell road
at one time you could see from kings road as you come to the coventry road traffic lights
i know its been there for decades even if you walk along the hay mills pub or club you would see it clearly
but in the last 18 months or so they built that play ground wall up higher so you cannot see it as it was right next to the wall
i have always glanced at it when passing either driving or walking but because they built up another foot or two you
cannot see iy on foot but they used it for year to store all there originale tiny desked and chairs from there early years of ever opening that schook must be 1800 i recon
but the only way to veryfye it is any member is passing that way on the buses traveling towards that way
from the sheldon or yardley way on the top deck of one of there buses heading towards the city you will be able to see if its still standing by that wall of coventry road over the school wall Astonian,,,
Click to expand...
Hi Alan, had a look from google map and looks as if its been knocked down, if I remember it was at the back of the Redhill pub, by Francis Rd. there seems to be a prefab classroom standing there now.
 
People erected Anderson shelters for years after the war to use as garden sheds, the proper jobs were below ground with the tops covered with soil not sure if this was functional or decorative.
 
The only protection an Anderson shelter could hope to give would be be against the splinters thrown out by anti - aircraft fire. A couple of feet of packed earth on top would've been sufficient.
 
maypolebaz said:
The only protection an Anderson shelter could hope to give would be be against the splinters thrown out by anti - aircraft fire. A couple of feet of packed earth on top would've been sufficient.
Click to expand...
They were pretty tough though, I remember my dad trying to drill holes in the sheets when he dug ours out and turned it into a shed.
He used a hand brace with a long wooden beam and me sitting on the end for leverage.
I think I've got a picture of the resulting shed somewhere, if I can find it I'll post it up.
 
My shelter is a "proper job" as I've mentioned before, it's totally under the ground. I've put some cagewire over the doorway as I can't get down there but animals can. There are brick steps but they are unsafe and crumbling. A relative tried to see what condition it's in, the wooden steps inside rotted years ago, and it's full of building rubble from the previous owner. I'm hoping it doesn't collapse in, but I don't walk over the top, even though it is about two thirds of the width of the garden.
rosie.
 
When i think back to those shelters of galvanised metal sheets, being used for shelter from bombs
being dropped on you, i think how on earth can they protect you from death
because if the houses around you took a direct hit all that weight of tonnage of debris on top
you are a Gonna , its sad to hear the loss of millions of people and its nice to hear millions survived the dammed war ,
the greatest place of all would have been down under ground at the Ansells brewery
Hundreds of feet below ground, i dare say there was other factories providning safety measures
Around the country doing such thing for the people
best wishes Alan,, Astonian,,,
 
This was the fate of some Anderson shelters after WW2. From Wikipedia :

At the end of the war in Europe, households who had received an Anderson shelter were expected to remove their shelters and local authorities began the task of reclaiming the corrugated iron. Householders who wished to keep their Anderson shelter (or more likely the valuable metal) could pay a nominal fee.
 
Astonian said:
When i think back to those shelters of galvanised metal sheets, being used for shelter from bombs
being dropped on you, i think how on earth can they protect you from death
because if the houses around you took a direct hit all that weight of tonnage of debris on top
you are a Gonna , its sad to hear the loss of millions of people and its nice to hear millions survived the dammed war ,
the greatest place of all would have been down under ground at the Ansells brewery
Hundreds of feet below ground, i dare say there was other factories providning safety measures
Around the country doing such thing for the people
best wishes Alan,, Astonian,,,
Click to expand...

The corrugated iron used in the shelters was of a very heavy gauge not the flimsy stuff you see used for sheds etc. I'm sure it saved a lot of lives from falling debris and if properly installed I'd guess even a house falling on it.
 
I remember my last few weeks at Moor End Lane school Erdington, we were asked...no, told to knock down a brick built air raid shelter down to about a foot below ground level. No wonder I played the wag!
 
well recall the brick built shelters down villa st..there was one every 2 or 3 apart..our back garden missed out but boy did we have fun playing in the others which of course resulted in many tellings off by the neighbours:D
 
At my junior school the brick-built, concrete roof, air raid shelter was still there in the early 1960s (red dot). Photo was taken about 1961. Google Earth tells me it's no longer there and in its place is a humble (PE equipment ?) shed. As you can see my friends and I didn't give it a second thought - more intrested in risking life and limb balancing on the very high wall above the playground! Viv.

image.jpeg
 
Hi Maurice
Here is a photograph taken on the subjects of Air Raid shelters which i was quoteing on the thread
afew days back, when in my opiniun what great comfort of not knowing what my happen
you may recall me saying how i thought about the security of protection from these shelters
well it turned out to correct
here is a picture of one said direct hit by bombs on one said shelter a direct hit
any body in there would not survive from it as i said
I think it was a shear waste of money from the said goverment to provide such silly things
but any way Maurice, i hope you are well and i enjoy reading your threads
 

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Hi Frothy
I never knew that myself either i would inmagine thats a weeks wages to a man in those days
I wonder how much the scrap man got for them Astonian,, Alan,,
 
I think the indoor Morrison shelter was much sturdier (it replaced your dining room table,) 1/2 inch steel, easier to assemble, no holes to dig and no going out in the cold in the Winter, it took a chunk of your living/dining room up but you soon adapted to it. Eric
 
Hi Alan,

Glad to see you still about. In my opinion, very few shelters would stand a direct hit, concrete or corrugated iron, unless buried several feet underground. Hence the use of deep shelters in London or elsewhere. Whether or not the Anderson shelters were a total waste of money, I'm not qualified to say, and I'm not sure the detailed statistics exist to enable a proper judgement to be made. I'm sure that they provided much more protection than getting under the dining table or a bed, and certainly provided some protection from flying glass. I think they were also a bit of a morale booster.

Where they any better than going down grandmother's coal cellar as we did in 1939/40? Debatable - in the cellar you could have two storeys of collapsed building on top of you, rather like in an Italian earthquake. Much like in a thunderstorm, we felt slightly safer from lightning and just hoped that the Germans didn't get lucky with a direct hit.

Since writing the above, I've just read the text above your picture and I'm more or less in agreement with it. The cost was £8 at a time when my father was earning £2. 12s 6d a week making packing cases for Perry Pens in Lancaster Street - well below the average Brummie wage. If you asked the average family if they would pay more than twice the average wage out of their own pockets, I'm sure the answer would be "No, we'll take our chances.", simply because they hadn't got it. Having it provided out of general taxation was another matter.

It's a bit like sending a soldier to fight in a WW2 tank - he's protected from .303 bullets & the like, but has got no chance against a piece of well-aimed high explosive. Sorry to have rambled on - take care.

Maurice
 
HI Maurice ,
I dont mind you rambling on my friendyou make sense on all your threads and story,s
and i enjoy them and i learn things from you , as i am sure there are other members as well learn
from your threads
speak soon maurice alan,, Astonian,,,,
 
sospiri said:
Hi Alan,

Glad to see you still about. In my opinion, very few shelters would stand a direct hit, concrete or corrugated iron, unless buried several feet underground. Hence the use of deep shelters in London or elsewhere. Whether or not the Anderson shelters were a total waste of money, I'm not qualified to say, and I'm not sure the detailed statistics exist to enable a proper judgement to be made. I'm sure that they provided much more protection than getting under the dining table or a bed, and certainly provided some protection from flying glass. I think they were also a bit of a morale booster.

Where they any better than going down grandmother's coal cellar as we did in 1939/40? Debatable - in the cellar you could have two storeys of collapsed building on top of you, rather like in an Italian earthquake. Much like in a thunderstorm, we felt slightly safer from lightning and just hoped that the Germans didn't get lucky with a direct hit.

Since writing the above, I've just read the text above your picture and I'm more or less in agreement with it. The cost was £8 at a time when my father was earning £2. 12s 6d a week making packing cases for Perry Pens in Lancaster Street - well below the average Brummie wage. If you asked the average family if they would pay more than twice the average wage out of their own pockets, I'm sure the answer would be "No, we'll take our chances.", simply because they hadn't got it. Having it provided out of general taxation was another matter.

It's a bit like sending a soldier to fight in a WW2 tank - he's protected from .303 bullets & the like, but has got no chance against a piece of well-aimed high explosive. Sorry to have rambled on - take care.

Maurice
Click to expand...
We had a Anderson shelter in the back garden, living in a cul-de-sac l know our neighbours had different forms of safety either Anderson shelter or Morrison shelter or they used the cellar,,,dad was a fire warden and after pulling live and dead people out of cellars he thought we were safer out side in the Anderson...many people got gassed also could get drowned as the cellar was where all the mains were...if you remember we had to go down the cellar to put money in the meter either for gas or electric so if the house was hit we would have a couple of stories of house on top of us....Brenda
 
hi brenda i dont think any form of shelter was entirely safe..just the luck of the draw i think...as you say cellars had all the mains in them and i have read of people drowning in them after their houses took a hit..same with the above ground shelters where many lost their lives..all i can say is it must have been awful for those who lived through the air raids...

lyn
 
My parents were bombed out of Banbury street, they were in a public shelter thank God.
They told me times were hard but they were good times with the comradery of people helping each other in troubled times.
 
Brenda's post made me think what a dreadful job being a WW2 fire warden must have been. The chances of having to pull out friends and neighbours from wreckage must have been high. Dread to think what psychological effect that must have had. Direct hits on shelters must have been horrendous, as the people inside might have been blown to pieces. Not a job many people could deal with. Viv.
 
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