Protection and Shelter.

The bombing had started and every family had to decide what kind of shelter to build .People in apartments had to use public shelters in the underground train system in London, or others that were built elsewhere. One could chose an Anderson shelter, which is made of corrugated iron bolted together in a tube shape and semi- buried in the garden.To camouflage it, they put earth and sods of grass over the top, making it almost undetectable to enemy planes. It was quite difficult to make the interior comfortable for the days and hours each year spent in it,with bunks and shelves needed and some form of heat.
The kind of shelter chosen by John's family was a Morrison shelter which was a large cage like metal dining room table with a solid steel top, and mesh sides. This could withstand the weight of the house collapsing on it, and protect the family from flying objects or glass. John tells that his small dog, Jill, was always the first one in there. Of course, this type was warmer than the one in the garden!
But we had a different one called a surface shelter, which was built on a concrete slad in the garden about 12ft. from our house.The walls and roof were double thickness and reinforced, the walls were of brick and the roof of concrete. The inside measured about 6x6ft. to house 6 people.There was a single bed for my parents to share, and we had a double bed spring for the children to share, so that our feet were under the bed and our heads were in the gap next to the bed. We had a shelf at each end, and a candle for light when we had night raids for the evenings and nights for many, many weeks, as the Germans wanted to break our morale. As we lay there some nights it would get near, and we could hear strings of bombs whistling down and hoping that they were not for us. I did colouring (notice the English spelling) or puzzle books to pass the time before we went to sleep. It's amazing how people can get used to even bad and dangerous routines.....eat an early meagre supper, gather up your needs, and off for another another enforced camping in the garden!