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The Few!
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Post Shelters. 
A Morrison shelter was indeed named after Herbert. It was a shelter built inside a house, usually the kitchen and could be used as a table. It had a reinforced top about the size of an average dining table, stood on steel legs and was surrounded with thick wire mesh. The idea was that people got inside, usually on old mattresses or rugs when the sirens went and had some protection from falling masonry, etc, if the house was hit. They were supplied mainly in cities and towns where there were no back gardens for the Anderson type shelters to be erected.

Some of my earliest memories are of sleeping in an Anderson, with the smell of the paraffin stove and the condensation dripping from the corrugated steel.

MB


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Mike Barton
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Post The Few. 
This article, written by Anne Widdicome, was in the Express to-day. I hope it is okay to display it.


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Last edited by StanW on Sun Feb 24, 2008 11:11 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Post Andersons, Morrisons and other memories. 
Maybe not quite right,Stan, but near as damit. However, lets not split hairs. I lived oop North on the outskirts of what is now known as Greater Manchester. In the then village we had a steelworks and one night, waiting to go into the Anderson Lord Haw Haw said that said steelworks was going to be obliterated. It was nice of him to let us know. The sirens went and we took to the dugouts. Fortunately, well prepared, every able person was ready to deal with the flares always dropped by the first wave of planes. It was stirrup-pumps and spades but by the time the bombers arrived there was hardly a flicker. A few bombs came down and a few houses went up, but mainly well away from the intended target. I hate to think what might have happened but for the infamous Haw Haw.

What we both report may seem a bit of an invention, since we were both so young....but a young mind will record things, and retain them better than the mind of an adult. It's like writing on pristine paper with a good pen. I can recall my fear and the smell of fear on others from those days....and nights. I even remember what we listened to on the radio in the house before the wail of the sirens on so many nights.......Tommy Handly.......and my favourite.... Big Bill Campbell, with his, Tales Around The Old Camp Fire. Our Anderson had been dug out and built by my uncle Albert, a man who had seen and survived the worst WW1 could dish out. He used the makings of two Andersons to make a family shelter, knowing that company under fire was essential. And I shall never forget that lift of spirits when the All-Clear went and we could escape the stink of paraffin by lifting the entrance curtain and climb out into the dew of another morning.

MB


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Post WWII RAF 
I frequently remember with pride my fighter pilot and bomber pilot uncles, and my other uncle and my father-in-law who helped to keep such aircraft maintained, armed and flying. My father-in-law retired as a Chief Tech at Lyneham, in the late 1960s.

My bomber pilot uncle had one of 'his' brand new Stirlings so badly shot up over Germany, that he had to pancake it down the runway, as the undercarriage in part failed, and the rest collapsed. Some of his mates quipped that if he did that a few more times he might get an Iron Cross from Adolf! My father-in-law was a fitter during the Battle of Britain, and saw a fellow fitter, due to tiredness of working long hours, lose his concentration, and turn around and walk into a revving propeller. Very nasty!

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