Birmingham and West Midlands

Memoirs of a Wartime Teenager

'Winston'had promised to'Fight on the Beaches and in the streets and never surrender'and he...

Hard Times

We lived on the outskirts of Birmingham so we didn't see much bombing, but the few stray bombs we had...

Memories of Erdington

Another night when they bombed Coventry we were down the shelter for hours and hours with the planes...

What Goes Around Comes Around

On Sunday mornings, I would pester my Father to take me to "Perry Barr Park", to see the guns and...

A Sauce Bottle for the Babby

Kathleen & Ivy came along to the Birmingham Back to Backs 1940s event to tell their story to a National...

A Satin Wedding Dress

I was determined to have a white wedding, and my husband brought the material from Africa - satin for me...

A Close Shave

Houses demolished by bombs and left derelict, my father travelling to Redditch for the night shift at HDA...

My Grandparents

As a Special Policeman, my Granfather often had to bring home the police dogs and they were kenneled in my...

VE Day 1945 - My Mother's Fondest Memory

Determined to make the day really special, I set off for the centre of Birmingham on the No. 7 'bus...

The Blitz in Walsall

During one air raid in broad daylight on a February afternoon a lone German plane dropped a bomb on the...

The Many Uses Of A Morrison Shelter!

The centre piece of our living room was the Morrison shelter. ALthough it was a large structure it was a...

The Longest Air Raid

Myself and other children would look for shrapnel from exploded bombs and often found pieces that were...

Air Raid Shelter: Dancing, Singing and Sandwiches in Birmingham

When the air raids were very bad, my Mother's Sister, her husband and their 5 children would travel on...

Me and My Family in the War

I should have been going to Canada with my aunt but the boat went down with all the children on, so I...

D-Day For My Mother-In-Law!

Rita married Terry and they moved to Bognor Regis in 1980 - Ada and Alf retired to the Isle of Wight in...

Wolverhampton VE Day Celebrations

Somebody started to walk into Wolverhampton town and we all followed them... We were all together from the...

Our Total Army 0ver 60 years ago !!

Stories of whistling bombs, living by all those factories, land mines, Heinkels and Dorniers, Ack Ack...

The Parson and the Dog. Ron Aspey.

As we came round a corner, there was a drunk swaying along towards us who upon seeing an RAF man pushing a...

Coincidence

One day an ARP workman knocked at the door and said, "Your husband is here in Birmingham Queen...

The Birmingham Blitz

The factory next door to us was set on fire by a fire bomb called the Molotov... When I left school at...

Air Raid at Aunty Daisy's: In Birmingham

My father was in the artillery on guns by the canal at Castle Bromwich where the Spitfires were made and...

Weather Report

I heard a talk here in Wolverhampton by the retired meteorologist Ian McCaskill, describing how his...

Celebrating

Although we lived in Orpington for the greater part of the war, my mother decided that Birmingham would be...

Socks: Smells in the Cellars of the Ansells Brewery

I suppose we were lucky we got through the war and now are able to tell our grand-children our tales....

My School in Bearwood

I lived in Bearwood, just outside Birmingham, with my parents and started school the day after war was...

Wartime shelters

I worked in the offices of a munitions factory and when this was bombed the staff were evacuated to the...