Remeber when

I am 75 so miss out on being a 1%er. Childhood memories my granda lived with us since I was 6. He had a passion for pigs trotters I tried them and at fisrt not keen but I would do anything to keep my granda happy. Soon got to like them. He also loved to boil the life out of a savoy cabbage and toss it(compost it) he only wanted the water, heavily peppered. Granda was stone deaf from the 1st world war , thing is he thought everyone was stone deaf:rolleyes: nothing wrong with our sense of smell , granda could clear a room after drinking a pint of cabbage water, keeps you regular he said.

Bit of a long story, but I found out when in my forties, that I was injured as a baby, when a doodlebug cut out above our house.
My sister told my mother, that I was off work with a bad back. Mum told her that it was expected, because my dad had pushed her under the table while she was holding me, resulting in me bawling my eyes out for weeks. The hospital was very busy, and she was told to see how I was in a few weeks. I seemed to be OK after a while, so it was forgotten.
As a kid at school, I suffered awful back pain, but just got on with it. Got bullied for being a wimp, until a kid put a pin on my seat in class. I got that pin stuck in my kneecap and lost my temper, then we were sent to the gym teacher, who made us fight it out in the ring.
I beat the kid and was asked to join the boxing club. Never bullied again, and got training that cured my back pain.
On going to the hospital in my forties, I had scans, and was told that I had broken my back at a very young age, but it had healed well, but was the cause of my pain.
Later I told the doctor what my mum had said, and he said yes, it all added up. He said I was lucky I was so young when it happened, or it may not have healed so well.
That kid bullying me was my saviour. It caused me to get really fit and cure my pain, as well as getting a bit of respect from all the bullies in my life.
Incidentally, the doodlebug landed a distance away, only causing some tiles to be lost from the roof.
Sorry for the boring tale, but the indoor Morrison shelter was a great reminder for me, having not thought about it for many years.

No John, You are both right there were two different types of shelter. The Morrison shelter was assembled indoors and often used as a rather bulky dining table because the proper dining table had to be relocated or used as firewood to make room for the shelter. I believe it was named after the Minister (of War?) who introduced it. It was bolted together in situ as once it was put together you couldn't move it. It was made from heavy steel framing with heavy steel mesh sides and very little room when the whole family squeezed in. The Anderson shelter was entirely different, in modern parlance its footprint was approximately 1.8m x 2.5m maximum height at its apex about 2.3m, depending on how deep you dug the hole (about 1.5m) for it and how much concrete you could get for the floor once the corrugated sections were bolted together in place down the hole, not forgetting the sump pit so you could bale out when it rained. The soil from the hole was then shovelled back over as further protection and as you said all sorts of things were grown on it. Funny thing though was for the entrance they supplied a wooden door (wouldn't have stopped a pea from a peashooter) luckily but don't know how, my Grandfather managed to get hold of a sheet of corrugated of the same thickness as the main shelter and made us door out of that. Don't know where the name Anderson came from but think it may have been the designer. Cheers GF

After the war a local guy went around removing the Andersons, said there was money in scrap.

Last we heard he was in 'The Scrubs', apparently extended his business to church roof lead among other things.

Corrugated Iron was the usual metalwork. don’t think asbestos was invented then ? At least I hope it wasnt or the 1% ers may of only been the .02 % ers today. JS

#44 Well you know the old saying John… one man’s rubbish another man’s fortune, Plus he didn’t believe in rich vicars. JS

They discovered after he war that the Anderson shelter with no door was responsible for quite few deaths from bomb blasts, as the blast came in through the opening.
Des

Hi John in Oz, Funny thing about those Anderson shelters, our Doctor went round buying up as many as he could get his hands on after the war. He had a very large house with a bigger than usual gatehouse. He lived in the gatehouse which also had rooms on the ground floor used as his GP's surgery and waiting room. The large house (known as The Hydro) was used for rehab and he was a great believer in hydro therapy and fresh air as a means of recovery from mental and physical injury and as this house stood in its own grounds (as a kid they seemed massive but was probably about 4/5 acres) there was plenty of room for the patients to roam or sit outside. Anyway, back to the Anderson shelters, there was a wide drive down to what had probably been a coach house and stables (Funny I had never thought about them before but can see them even now) so using the corrugated iron he lined one side of this drive with lock-up garages built from the old shelters and rented them out for extra income. I know this for a fact as my Father rented one when he was given a company car. Just another memory of good times this time as a kid. Cheers GF

Yes mate, some very odd things after the war.

Not far from where we lived was the remains of what had been a housing area.
All that was left was water tanks at the top of a water pipe.
The tanks had been in the roof space and the pipes were strong enough to hold the empty tanks up.
They were there for about 3 years like that until the council turned the area into a playing field.

Were there is muck there is brass/money