The Anderson shelter for protection in WW2 air raids

Once the kit for our Anderson shelter was delivered, we faced the problem of assembling it. First my father, helped by my uncle, dug a rectangular hole in our back garden, supposed to be about four feet deep. I can't remember its length and width. That depended on the type of Anderson shelter that we were given, but it had to be big enough for makeshift beds, benches and a tiny table.

Erecting an Anderson shelter

Four feet is a lot of digging and most of the families I knew didn’t go down that far. Perhaps that was a good thing, provided they didn’t get hit! because the deepest shelters were the dampest and muddiest.

Once the hole was dug my father and uncle had to fix the heavy corrugated sheets in arcs from one side to the other and then place uprights at the back and front, with a small entrance/exit at one end. This done, gaps were sealed with bitumen and the floor was concreted. Then they had to put sandbags or earth on top against bomb blast. Most families used earth from the hole that they had dug.

Peter Smith

Anderson shelters were always running with condensation after people had been in them a while and there was always water on the floor. My father made a wooden rack to keep our feet dry. He also installed a hand water pump so the water could be removed.

Tony Shepherd

In some areas it doesn't matter what you do to try to make an Anderson watertight, it just carries on taking in water, like a trench.

from 'Last Rights' by Barbara Nadel

Inside our Anderson shelter, we had four bunk beds, a bucket with a seat as a chamber pot and another bucket for drinking water. It was pretty cramped.

Peter Johnson

There were also candles or oil lamps. The night-light candles had to have a clay flower pot over them to reduce the light because of the blackout. The candles would burn up the oxygen in the air and you got sleepy.

Tony Shepherd

The cat came too

By 1943 I had a baby brother and we had a cat as a pet. Ludicrous as it may seem now, an evening ritual developed. When the first warning siren of the night sounded - as it did on most nights, usually between seven and nine o'clock - we would all make our way outside to our Anderson shelter. My mother would carry baby Richard, my father would carry Jimmy the cat, and I would go with them on foot in my dressing gown and slippers. We would settle down in the shelter for the night, smelling the bitumen and listening to the sounds around us.

When the all-clear siren sounded, we would return to the house.

John Cole

The hen came too

The hen came too! When the siren sounded, my grandmother's prize 'Rhode Island Red' hen was hastily dumped into a cardboard box to accompany us outside to the Anderson shelter. The cock, on the other hand, a vicious bad-tempered creature which I hated with a passion, was left outside to face Hitler's bombs. I used to pray that my tormentor might 'cop it'!

Michael Sullivan

The noise of crashing buildings

I lived in Newport during the war and the bombing there was relentless because the Germans were trying to put the docks out of action. We spent every night outside in the Anderson shelter. Young as I was, I shall never forget the noise of the bombs as they came down. It was faint in the beginning, gradually getting louder and finally becoming a scream. As the scream got louder, all conversation stopped. We sat in deathly silence, just waiting, as there was no way of knowing whether or not the bomb would miss us. As it landed, we heard and sometimes felt the explosion. We had no idea what we were going to see when we emerged the next morning.

Ros Collins

The noise of the doodle bugs

I well remember the 'doodle bugs' which I hated, as I knew that when the engine stopped they would fall. I was so scared waiting and listening to see if they would land on our house.

Jill Gaisford

A baby is born in an Anderson shelter

My sister Margaret Anderson Johnson was born in our Anderson shelter during the blitz, hence her Anderson middle name. This was at 153 Bulwer Road, Edmonton N.18. My mother went into labour. So my brother Eric, sister Betty and I went to stay in next door's shelter for the night. Next morning we had a new baby sister. She was in all the newspapers at the time, being christened "The Blitz Baby". We had a midwife, a Queens Nurse for the birth, and soap and water, carbolic and flea powder to try and keep the shelter tidy and smelling nice.

Peter Johnson

Every morning, someone had to empty the bucket or chamber pot, renew the candles or refill the lamps and dry off damp bedding.

It was my sister and my job to pump the water out. We had to do it once a week with a Paragon hand pump.

Norman Groocock