The WW2 school shelter used by my class at Edgware
Primary School in 1944. This picture is a computerised composite of several
original photographs, created to match my recollections.
I was born three months before the start of the Second World War,
and I lived in north London. The war ended in 1945, so most of my
recollections of air-raids are from before I went to school. However I do remember
one air-raid while I was at my first school, Edgware Primary School.
When the siren went, we all had to troop out
into a field at the back of the school and be led what seemed quite a long way
to climb down into an underground shelter. As we went, we had to sing "Ten
green bottles" presumably to help us move quickly in step with the beat.
Nevertheless, if a bomb had dropped, we would never have reached the shelter in time.
I recall at least one occasion when we school children were ordered to
leave the dinner tables
because the air raid siren was sounding. We filed down to the basement
where we occupied the time singing songs. Then, when the 'all clear' sounded, we returned to
our dinner tables where we sat down again to
the same plates of dinner, now cold. We had to eat it! No potato crisps or chocolate bars as alternatives!
Michael Sullivan
There
were a number of shelters, probably one for each class. Our shelter wasn't particularly crowded. What stuck in my mind was how wet, muddy
and dark it was inside because it was some way below ground level. There were
benches to sit on but they were not particularly inviting because the dampness
and mud seemed to have got to them too. Fortunately the air-raid wasn't a long
one and we were let out quickly.
Archaeological findings at school shelters
In the summer of 2005 the edge of what turned out to be the buried remains of a wartime air-raid shelter was found on a raised area of turf in the playing field of what was Edgware Primary School. Archaeological excavation revealed a staircase down, cast from a single piece of concrete leading to a shelter almost 15m long. Two of the visible walls
were built from preformed panels of reinforced concrete approximately
0.45 m wide and 2 m high; the partition to the right of the entrance was a half-brick wall. At the far end there was a metal ladder leading up to an emergency exit, sealed with a concrete plug. There was a toilet cubicle at each end of the shelter, but the chemical toilets and the benches had been removed. Fragments of electrical wiring remained, including the brackets for the distribution panel and several bakelite covers.
After the war, the wood, glass and electrical fittings were stripped out and sold for scrap.
According to records dated September 1946, thirteen air-raid shelters at the school were sealed up with reinforced concrete. These thirteen were shared between what were Edgware Primary School and the adjacent Edgware Secondary Modern School.
based on: Moshenska, Gabriel, Unearthing an air-raid shelter at Edgware Junior School, Historical Archaeology, Summer 2007, pp 237-240.
There were probably two, maybe three, exits to the
shelters at the back of Edgware Primary school.
One was somewhere near the outside
door at the headmaster’s office and at least one more was further down in the
direction of Burnt Oak. The shelter I remember consisted of a sloping shaft
with concrete walls and steps, leading down to the shelter room. The room
was pretty long, but my childish mind was too immature to think about length
or to judge it. I think there was a WC down there.
We children sat in two parallel rows facing each other.
With our backs to a wall, we all had our heads turned to one side, looking
towards the dimly lit teacher.
I only ever remember going into the shelter during
air-raids - never for practice.
Tony Woods whose memory
is
better than mine as he was born two years before me
I was at Silver Street School in
Edmonton, north London
during the Second World War, and can't remember any air-raid shelters there.
There were, though, very thick brick blast walls specially built in front
of every entrance. During one air-raid, I hid under my desk and when the
bomb went off all the pictures on the wall fell off and came crashing down.
Peter Johnson
This website Join me in the 1900s is also known as
Join me in the 1900's and is © Pat Cryer.
