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Life in the Anderson Shelter — 1941
By
Beryl Donaldson

By December 1940, I had become bored and restless at the schooling, which was on offer and felt the time had come to leave and seek a job. I obtained a temporary post as a cashier in one of the big department stores initially for the pre — Christmas period. Air raid sirens were still liable to sound during the day and when this happened, cashiers had to lock their long wooden partitioned tills and carry them hurriedly to the basement shelter, (no modern electronic cash registers yet!) there to await the all — clear and return to our cash desks.
Then began the regular night raids which would often start early on in the evenings, so it was not unusual for me to hurry home from work, have a quick meal, and then along with the rest of the family and the pet dog, take refuge in the Anderson shelter in the back garden. We had bunks on which to try and sleep although it was cold and damp most of the time. I suppose we must have been able to snatch some rest as life had to continue next day as normally as possible. Like most houses in our area, although we had an upstairs bathroom there was still an outside toilet where once had been a coal — store. This was very useful when we were confined to the shelter for hours on end, and we would wait for the overhead drone of planes to fade away then make a dash whilst it was quieter. Many a time I can recall my mother giving a shout ‘ hurry up he’s coming back’ as a Nazi bomber came menacingly close once more.
After one heavy night’s raid we had gone indoors to have a cup of tea at the sounding of the all — clear, only to be disturbed by our local ARP warden telling us we must leave our homes as there was an unexploded bomb close by. This was about 6am so we hurriedly dressed in warm clothing and set off for the local school which was to be the centre for us to stay until it was deemed safe for us to return home. Dog as well had came along, together with a small parcel of food for him, we had to take pot luck for our next meal! Luckily it was not too long before we were allowed home, whether it was a false alarm or the bomb had been made safe, I cannot now recall. I know it was an eerie experience in the cold light of a winter dawn. Cracked and broken windows from bomb blast and the black — out were part and parcel of everyday living. We emerged each morning from the shelter thankful to be alive, trying to carry on the daily round after a noisy night of ack-ack fire and the dreaded sound of bombs falling and exploding.
One morning a neighbour called to alert my mother about an ‘incident’ in which some friend’s had lost their lives when their house suffered a direct hit. Mother, daughter, young son who was a school friend of my brother, a cousin staying with them, and the pet dog, had all been killed while sheltering in a cupboard under the stairs. Father and older son survived as they were standing at the front door watching searchlights and the traces of gunfire. This was a very sad day for us as we had been on very friendly terms with all the family. It brought home to us yet again how slender our survived could be.
After many weeks the threat of night long raids subsided somewhat and occasionally we ventured back into the house to sleep although usually on the ground floor which seemed a little safer than upstairs bedrooms. Even then the blood chilling sound of an air raid warning awakened us at times and off to the shelter we had to go there to await the all — clear. We must have been very tired after so many months of sleeping rough and wondering how long our luck would hold, yet I cannot remember ever having any doubt that one day the war would end and life would resume a happier state.

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