A Blast From The Past

As a small boy, I would often be allowed to visit Nana and Grandad for the weekend. I think as the eldest Grandchild I was somehow Nana’s favorite. Grandad would usually be at work and if I’d known then where he worked I would have been very keen to go with him! Grandad worked for the post office. Now that doesn’t sound very interesting but the Royal Mail had it’s very own underground train system and THAT is where Grandad worked!

Nana’s “garden” was very overgrown but I still enjoyed being out there. The place where Nana’s house was, had been hit by a World War 2 bomb and the houses there destroyed. In their place, rapidly built prefabricated homes were put up and it was in one of these that Nana and Grandad still lived.

In the garden was this strange structure. It’s called an “Anderson Shelter.” Remarkably strong despite the simple design, these bomb shelters were extremely common sights when I was a child. I’d hide in there and play all sorts of games but the true horror of what these “fun” buildings were for was unknown to me of course. Even if I’d been told, I would have been unable to imagine the terror, the noise and smoke, the uncertainty and everything else that went with a war-time existence.

Eventually, being inquisitive, I would ask all sorts of questions. Why did the shelters get built? Did they work? Did people really sleep in them? And so on.

They were built to protect people. Yes they were crude and not at all comfortable but they worked and yes, many peoples lives, including Nana’s (and by extension mine!) were saved by following the simple instructions to build these shelters, sleep in them when air raids were going on and not come out until the all clear was sounded!

Taking simple, if unusual, precautions to protect our families seems often to have been a ‘thing’ in history.

I wonder what future generations will remember me doing to protect them? For now, being sensible and not taking silly risks, doing the right thing, and generally living in a way that will make them proud of me, doesn’t seem like much in comparison to sleeping in an Anderson Shelter while your house blows up!

Doing the “Right Thing” though, while seeming simple now, may very well BE the thing that shines like a beacon into the future.