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Blitz Street

S

sylviasayers

master brummie
This is the title of new series starting tonight Monday, 19th April, on Channel 4, exploring life on the home front. Starts 9 p.m. I shall certainly watch it.
 
Very interesting to see the effect of the bombs on those houses, so scary to think it happened for real. I found the peoples stories very moving - they can remember it like it was yesterday and I am not surprised - how do you forget sights like that.
polly
 
Hi there i told them about this on the blitz thread a couple of weeks ago, never thought to put it on here sorry, it was very interesting i think its on for a few weeks
 
Excellent . I liked the Defiant Milk Bottle. Tony Robinson is rarely in a duff program, I don't know how much control over input he has.
 
Having watched the programe last night,I found it more scary than when it was really happening.
At the time,us little boy's probably wasn't affected too much,more like an adventure hiding in cellars.
However,what has always struck me the most, was the resilience,fortitude and stoicism of young mom's,they would mostly not have their husbands around (fighting the war in foriegn parts),and on top of that they would have this horror and the children to cope with as well.They, the mom's don't get mentioned often,so I alway's say it when I can.
 
Ray Barrett said:
Having watched the programe last night,I found it more scary than when it was really happening.
At the time,us little boy's probably wasn't affected too much,more like an adventure hiding in cellars.
However,what has always struck me the most, was the resilience,fortitude and stoicism of young mom's,they would mostly not have their husbands around (fighting the war in foriegn parts),and on top of that they would have this horror and the children to cope with as well.They, the mom's don't get mentioned often,so I alway's say it when I can.
Click to expand...
Thanks for sharing that with us Ray. Children do sometimes seem to see dangerous things as an adventure don't they - probably a good thing really.
Whenever I watch programmes about the war I have to remind myself it was all real. I don't know how the women coped either - and packing their children off to live with strangers and not knowing if or when they would see them again, as a mum I can't begin to imagine doing that.
Polly
 
Ray Barrett said:
Having watched the programe last night,I found it more scary than when it was really happening.
At the time,us little boy's probably wasn't affected too much,more like an adventure hiding in cellars.
However,what has always struck me the most, was the resilience,fortitude and stoicism of young mom's,they would mostly not have their husbands around (fighting the war in foriegn parts),and on top of that they would have this horror and the children to cope with as well.They, the mom's don't get mentioned often,so I alway's say it when I can.
Click to expand...

Ray you couldn't have summed it up any better if you had taken the words right out of my mouth.
Till I had children of my own I never realised what Mom must have gone through and Dad being away, on top of the Blitz it was the next day thinking of what she could find to feed us.
Its things like this programme that makes you wish she was here so you could tell her.:(
 
Polly,
How my mom coped with me,and the bombing,I don't know,as I used to go walkabout with older boy's,whilst this was going on.However,I was not evacuated,(still have all my papers),my story is I was such a wonderful child,mom couldn't let me go.:rolleyes:.Alf,my mom came to my 70 birthday party,so I was blessed with having her around,long enough to speak on these matters,didn't really need to tell her how I felt...she knew.:)
 
I wasn't around till after the war but my brother told me some funny stories and so did my mom even though the house two doors away took a direct hit. How lovely to have your mom around for your seventieth Ray. Jean.
 
Even in the worst of times there is alway's comedy Jean.My gran moved from Aston to avoid the bombing,and of course you know where to...FRANCHISE STREET.about 100 yards from Kynocks gate.
I suppose one bomb hitting Kynocks...and Aston,Witton and Perry Barr,could have been one big hole.:(
 
:greatbritainflag:I watched last night and like i do whenever i see a programme like this i think, how did all you people who lived it manage to come through it,Women watching their husbands/sons go away,sometimes their children,but as Ray said it has more impact watching it now,my relatives who were there said they got used to it,how is beyond me,my dad who was out there fighting never really spoke about it,i was born after,but i take my hat off to all who went through it,
 
Have yet to watch the latest but I have learned that the closest I want to be to a bomb is the one my father was always threatening to put under me.
People really are amazing to be able to come to terms with this sort of thing. Today people go about their business all over the world, never certain if this could be their last day on Earth. A suicide bomber, a victim of " collateral damage" or simply the wrong place at the wrong time can mean your time is up and you can do nothing whatsover to change it.The randomness of it is scary.
 
It took me back last night people describing the Whistling when the bombs were dropping then the silence before the explosion, I went over all cold just thinking about it.
 
once again i found the peoples stories very moving. The man who remembered as a child sitting in the classroom in the morning while the teacher called the register and when some names were called out there was just a silence until one of the children would say 'his/her house was hit last night, he's/she's dead'. I can't imagine having to cope with this as a child and still having to go to School the next day.
Polly
p.s The milk bottle still didn't break :D although it tipped over, the lid came off and some of the milk came out.
 
How people coped is beyond me,i know there are troubles all over the world but i hope and pray we never have that sort of thing again,and at one time i think people used to say it will never happen again because it was so awful,but now i think people think it could happen again
 
Hi all,

I'm 81 yrs. was 10yrs when the war started, we lived at Great Barr/Kingstanding. I remember we were down the shelter everynight. One time an unexploded fire bomb landed on the shelter, it was such a thump, dad was a fire warden, busy beating out the flames in the five cornfields, but he and our neighbour heard us screaming DAD. My aunt and uncle lived near the Miller street tram depot,Aston. when that went up their shelter was too hot to stay in, so they had to run through falling ash etc to get to another one. They ended up living at Grandma's in High Street, Aston, opposite the Barton Hall.
 
Hello Iris thanks for sharing your memories with us. I still can't imagine what it must have been like to live through all that danger and sadness. I think there will never be another generation as tough as yours.......best wishes Wendy.
 
Alf said:
It took me back last night people describing the Whistling when the bombs were dropping then the silence before the explosion, I went over all cold just thinking about it.
Click to expand...

Hi All,

I was a 13 year old lad living in Small Heath during the blitz. It was always said, and I believe it was a fact, that if you could hear the whistle of a bomb as it approached the ground it was not going to hit you, but it could be mighty close so, If you were not in the shelter, it was best to fling yourself down flat.

Old Boy.
 
I was born in 1952, but my husband remembers the bombs and the noises. Our house has an Anderson shelter below ground level but the previous owner almost filled it with bricks, rubble and all sorts of rubbish. I can't get down the steps very well, so I don't know how people coped in those days. Just the thought of being shut in there is bad enough. My grand-children think it would be fun to play in there but no doubt those of you who had to endure the "shelter" will think differently!
Mum remembered windows blown out, and doors going inside out, ceiings falling and hearing shrapnel rolling down the roof.....it made a hole in the watering -can! I remember Mum's neighbour still had the "Table shelter" to lie underneath.
 
We had a cat named Mick,when there was a raid on he used to start making a fuss BEFORE the sirens went,he would then take his place on top of the Anderson shelter.:)
One morning we emerged from the shelter,and found our house was damaged,and Mick had lost one of his ears,must have been taken off by a piece of shrapnel.:(
We never went in that anderson again,it flooded,so we used a public one,which was the cellar of a big house in Victoria Rd,(it's still there).
 
:greatbritainflag:I can only echo what Wendy said on post 20,thanks for sharing with us and i can't imagine people coping how your generation did
 
The only thing I remember about the war is the air raid shelter we used in Coleraine road we shared with our neighbours Mr and Mrs Hewitt after the war many of these shelters became garden sheds and some became"our dens" where we could play cowboys and Indians, and play out all our fantasy's ( no batteries or mains required) I all so remember when I went to Dorrington rd school the air raid shelters in the playground. And at the school we had the lights on in the daytime as the windows still had the windows painted with blackout paint!
 
Here is our Anderson shelter in Booth street Handsworth my Mom with brother Bob and curly haired one is me LOL
 
See our John I find more info about you on here than what you tell me:) Did I ever know Mr and Mrs Hewitt?
 
Hi Wend its only by coming on here that subjects like this jog your memory. Keep it up little sis.
 
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