For Johnf

[gray_marian]

http://mashable.com/2015/11/24/londo...k#tHNIEqMcukqJ

Some good clips after this one

[John F Collier]

#1 Thanks very much for that Marian thats another one for my favourites locker, I never get fed up with looking at these pictures, the character
and courage of the ordinary folk shown here is the same as that shown by our armed forces and the MN and is what carried us through the dark days of the war. The faces and clothes all seem to stay the same as I remember them as I grew older, I knew all of my neighbours as Mr & Mrs there was always respect for older people, that is how we were raised. For me that is something to cherish, right or wrong that is my mindset and I will never change, I am "British and Proud." I don't think I ever slept in the tube station, it was the Anderson shelter for us and the kitchen table when the crunch came. cheers JC

[Captain Kong]

Good memories there Marian.
We had a brick shelter in the back yard with a concrete roof, then the House was bombed and we only just got out of it.Another few feet and it would have hit the shelter which would have been no protection. then a Council House with an Anderson shelter. When a BIG bomb blew up my mother down the road the shock waves bounced us out of our bunks, Like an earthquake.
Brian

[Jim Brady]

We had the brick shelter in the back yard,what year were they built ? I remember my mother saying one of the bricklayers that was building the one in our backyard saying,I don't know why they are building these they wont be needed.My cousin was on the building of them only a young man he was killed at Al-Alamein.
Regards.
Jim.B.

[John F Collier]

The shelters were only really effective from falling debris etc they would have had no chance from a direct hit or even a very near miss. Even the Underground Tube stations had their fatalities, with 16 killed at Bounds Green station north London in 1940, 'featured in Marians Thread', and 68 killed at Balham tube station south London also in 1940, when a huge bomb penetrated some 30ft and detonated causing the station to collapse and also breaking the water mains which drowned a lot of people who were trapped in the debris. So nowhere was really safe it was down to luck,
for some good, and others it was bad. When you look at the photo's of these families it brings it home to you that it was real people and not just
statistics, there may have been more but these are the ones I remember hearing about. cheers, JC

[eric fisher]

In Dec 1941, the blitz in Manchester was deadly. We had a brick and concrete roofed shelter in the backyard. During the night a landmine dropped three blocks away. A family, the Thorntens, 5 kids, parents and Grand-parents nine in all were in their brick shelter when the mine struck. The shelter was never recovered. None survived and no bodies were ever recovered, others close by were killed and most of the shelters were severely damaged. Our house was damaged but liveable. My Dad was a Warden in the ARP and me at around 16yrs was a messenger. We were kept busy for several days afterwards working with the Rescue squads.

My schoolboy friend, lived in the next block to the bomb site, he and his family were injured and had to live in temporary housing 'til the war's end. He served in the Fleet Air Arm about the time I went to sea in the M.N. in '42 and was lost later in the Pacific just before VJ Day.

Jim, Ours was built in 1938. Everyone was expecting war, also issued gas masks.

[Jim Brady]

Thanks for that Eric 1938,the war and the bombing must've been imminent.
Regards.
Jim.B.

[Doc Vernon]

Some really great old Photographs there Marian

Must have been hell in those Years got all concerned,but then I suppose one just had to get used to it!
Not the War years I know but reminds me of the time me and my late Brother were out of Work in London,and had quite a few nights sleeping on the Circle Line those days,round and round all night!
Thank goodness it never lasted long!
Cheers

[happy daze john in oz]

After the war we were moved by council to a new area with large Victorian houses on three levels all used as flats. The back garden was huge and at the bottom an Anderson shelter buried beneath the earth. Most likely used at some time.