War and the forces

THE MINISTRY OF FOOD

In those days adventure was on your doorstep. Where the Co-op supermarket now stands was a large Victorian building. The notice read: THE MINISTRY OF FOOD.

At the side of this building was a piece of land that led back to a flint wall 10ft high, at Prestonville Road. Stretching from the front of this land to the rear of this building was an air raid shelter.

It was now the end of the war and the shelter was never used. When used it was a large shelter and held 200 people. A siren would sound, people would all rush to the shelter.

There it was a very nice atmosphere. People made mugs of tea and drank it by candlelight. If bombs fell you only felt the vibrations. The noise was drowned by people singing. Forget about karaoke! Young and old, no one seemed shy.

The shelter now was dirty and unused. We had entered the shelter at the front and came out. Outside at the back of the building we saw a black door. It was about 4ft high with no lock.

Inside it was about 5ft 6in, an ideal winter camp we thought. Once down the steps of the shelter at the front of the building we were out of sight. We obtained carpet (I use the word lightly) for the floor, a small low square table, some cushions to sit on and some blankets.

We now had somewhere we could smoke in peace and plan our next adventure.

Above our hideout was a little chapel. Obviously the former owner of this grand house used it for private prayer.

One day the authorities became aware of our presence and a policeman banged on our door (probably given away by the smoke). We kept quiet - we had put a bolt on the inside of our door - but the policeman knew we were in there and shouted and banged. But we had an escape route - there was a door opposite our main door that led to a small triangular area, each side of the main triangle only 3ft long.

The third wall was the flint wall to Prestonville Road. This was the main shopping road. This side of the Dials there was a butcher, a grocer, a greengrocer, a sweet shop, a newsagent, a hardware shop and a shoe repair shop: A very nice road for shopping. We never went back to our camp.

by Derek Hobbs-Ainley

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