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This story was submitted to the People’s War web site by Ron Steer, of ��ѿ��ý South East Today, on behalf of Michael Vigar and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Vigar fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Father’s Foresight

In 1937 or 1938 my Father started to build a shelter down in the bottom of the garden. He dug a hole and put boards down over which to wheel his wheelbarrow. The hole was deep underground with an old brass bedstead as a roof; he covered it with a rockery on top. There was a little entrance chamber at ground level made of breeze blocks and you went down by wooden steps. He even used a porcelain drainage pipe, which he placed from the top of the rockery into the shelter, to provide fresh air. The neighbour, with whom relations were not good, leaned over the fence and said, “Ha Ha Ha, someone thinks there is going to be a war”. Father said, “B****y sure there will be”, and carried on building the shelter.
I was nine years old at the start of the war. On the day that war was declared, Mother turned on the radio to hear Mr. Chamberlain’s voice saying, “I regret to tell you that we are at war with Germany”. A few minutes later the siren went off and I burst into tears and said, “Oh Mummy we are all going to get killed”. She said “Don’t be silly dear, let’s go down into the shelter”. Several minutes later the all clear went; it was a false alarm.
My lasting memory is of my fear at that time, and the feeling of security that my Mother gave me. We used that shelter a lot during the war. Later, of course, as I grew older, my friends and I grew quite blasé about air raids and enemy action.

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