• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

World War II - Air Raid Shelters - Manchester area

Status
Not open for further replies.

eMeS

Member
Joined
12 Jun 2011
Messages
954
Location
Milton Keynes, UK
I spent my early years in the west Manchester area (Urmston, Flixton and Davyhulme), and during WWII, we had an air-raid shelter delivered, and erected in our front room. The web based history sites list two types of air-raid shelter - Anderson and Morrison. My grandmother who lived a short distance away in Urmston had an Anderson shelter (half-buried) in her rear garden so I know what they looked like, and some of our neighbours had Morrison shelters with their flat tops, and vertical coarse wire-mesh sides.
What I'm hoping for information on is a name for the steel walled and roofed air raid shelter that we had. After the war, many of them were dismantled and re-erected as coal shelters in peoples' gardens.
Design-wise, it had short vertical side-walls on top of which the roof sloped on each side, with a flat roof area. The front was open, and there was a thinner steel sheet at the head end. It was made of heavy gauge steel sheet, bolted together, After the war, most people re-erected them in the garden and used them as a coal store. It was wide enough to take my parents with me sleeping between them.

Any ideas for a name? Many thanks
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

eMeS

Member
Joined
12 Jun 2011
Messages
954
Location
Milton Keynes, UK
Thanks for your interest.

I've been to a number of RAF Museums, and both the Imperial War Museum in South London, and the branch at Duxford where they have Anderson shelters, but nothing like I remember. I've tried the search facility on the IWM website, and after trawling through 20 pages of images (200 images) with "shelter" in their description, have found nothing like I remember. The IWM material is very London based, and as we lived near steel factories to the west of Manchester, I'm now wondering if our shelters were local to the Manchester area.
 
Last edited:

deltic1989

Established Member
Joined
21 Sep 2010
Messages
1,483
Location
Nottingham
I had a quick look around google (Search Term: Indoor Air Raid Shelter), and turned up the attached image, based on your description.
There doesn't appear to be any details of what the name for the type of shelter was, however from my limited knowledge of the period (WW2 ended 50 odd years before I was born), it would appear to be the sort of middle ground between an Anderson and a Morrison.
 

Attachments

  • Air Raid Shelter.jpg
    Air Raid Shelter.jpg
    221.3 KB · Views: 24

DarloRich

Veteran Member
Joined
12 Oct 2010
Messages
29,182
Location
Fenny Stratford
i assume that is designed to protect from shrapnel/ flying glass etc. Would it have protected against falling masonry?

I assume this was for areas where others shelters couldn't be provided
 

eMeS

Member
Joined
12 Jun 2011
Messages
954
Location
Milton Keynes, UK
i assume that is designed to protect from shrapnel/ flying glass etc. Would it have protected against falling masonry?
Bear in mind that when I last saw it, I was about 10 years old and I haven't seen one since, but I remember it as being made of quite thick steel (I think) plate. The foot end was completely open, and masonry etc. would easily have fallen on the occupants' feet. Before this was delivered and set up in our lounge, we sheltered under the oak table in the dining room which faced east. I remember waking up in December 1940 after the raid on Manchester, and seeing that the morning sky over Manchester 7 miles away,. was red following the blitz. (I was 28 months old at the time.)
Many years later, my aunt told me that following the blitz no trains were running, so she and her friend walked to work in central Manchester to find that her building had been missed by the bombing, but that buildings either side had been hit. Their last 3 miles was over broken glass. The caretaker, still at his post, told them to return home. A short time later she joined the ATS and served in Western Command at Chester.

I assume this was for areas where others shelters couldn't be provided
I can't recall any public street sited shelters where we lived in Flixton, but from memory, there were three communal concrete roofed, brick walled shelters sited in Victoria Road, Urmston where my grandmother lived. (She had a semi-submerged Anderson shelter in her back garden - super place for young kids to play in.)
In about 1945-6 I can remember one of her neighbours having a car fitted with a huge gas bag on its roof - quite a sight with the support strutting etc.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top