The Birmingham Post from Birmingham, West Midlands, England • 7

THE BIRMINGHAM POST NOVEMBER 14, 1970 Days of decision that held the home FOR this generation the blitz on Coventry is just another page in the history books, a page to be forgotten and perhaps the lessons it taught ignored, but for me the mass air raid on November 14, 1940, and those which followed have vivid memories of horrific scenes, heroic courage and sacrifice, and many exhibitions of praiseworthy native resource and self reliance. The nightly dangers which everyone shared brought the community together, melted traditional reserve and neighbours were not jut "them next door." Our homes were in front-line positions and the risks we had to take to protect them were mutual experience but when the war came to an end the spirit which galvanised the community unfortunately receded and almost vanished when the external threat no longer existed. The curtain has never been completely lifted on what happened in the blitz or the events which led up to It, but civil defence In the national emergency took six prime years of my life and I am now the only living person among the decision-takers to tell the story of some of the pulsating moments and tragic days and nights. As vice-chairman and subsequently chairman of the War Emergency Committee I lived with bombing incidents, and helped to bind the wounds of the survivors and to harness the resources which brought elementary order out of the chaos and carnage of destruction. LOCAL FACTORS The Government was pathetically aware of the local factors which arose, especially the social pressures built up through the big intake of workers to wartime sobs.

The city burst at the seams in every conceivable direction, but the authorities had not registered that a bigger labour force needed more food, more houses, more transport, in fact more of everything. A popular demand for deep shelters grew up and we pressed the idea on the Ministry 31 Home Security, but were told that the geological conglomeration of Coventry made such a proposal impossible. I knew the answer to be all poppycock, and it has since proved to be so when the sandstone foundations of a large central store during reconstruction revealed the truth. The site would have been ideal for deep cutting and would have had a useful residual value for car parking. Although opinions varied about the safety factors of this or that type of shelter, basically one's composure in a raid rested more on how one felt about it.

The Andersons, the Morrisons, the Public Surface and those within the curtilage of factories, all had their devotees. The nightly visits of the Luftwaffe. the trial runs along the radio beams, left behind damage and An old Riley, wrecked by the bombing. front casualties and tested the organisation of civil defence. The street fireguards got in some practice snuffing out incendiaries with sand.

bags, but the exercise grew more Muardous when the bombs were charged with high explosives. The earliest of the 53 air attacks on Coventry were the blooding period and steeled everyone for the heavy and most raid in 1940. The intermittent raids threw into relief the natural leaders, and one of them, a close friend and active worker in the women's section of the Labour Party and the Co-op Women's Guild, filled a useful niche in the organisation of the Women's Voluntary Service. The very colourful figure of Alderman Pearl Hyde emerged, a cockney, who in due course became the first lady Lord Mayor of the city and in the war years commandant of the WV S. A fine character.

the only working-class Commandant in the in the whole country. she accepted the leadership and carried it with great aplomb. The virtues of the women who served so well were not always fully appraised for I remember Polish omcer coming here to review a troop of the Women's Voluntary Service, and after going up and down the ranks and taking a careful look, he enquired: "Who did you say these ladies are?" and when told, answered, "I would rather pay." On the civil defence front the situation grew more grim as night by night the German Mr Force felt their way into the heart of the country. The citizens of Coventry had grown accustomed to looking at their watches about 7.15 p.m:, cocking an ear and listening for the drone of approaching aircraft and asking, "Is it one of ours?" The first warning came not from the official sources, but from the dogs in the neighbourhood, their ears tuned to a higher and more sensitive pitch than their masters'. Long before the alarm signal, the barking of the dogs heralded the bombers.

The street fireguards, alerted by their canine friends, prepared to fight with sand, snades and stirrup pumps, and families ran fin shelter either in the homespun dugout at the bottom of the garden or in the home. The shelter system had some merit, but most folk believed that if you had your name on a 500 lb. bomb, you had had it, whatever kind of shelter you used. One needed to have a resigned philosophy and the serenity of mind. like an old lady living in the target area who had a visit from the priest.

Whilst on his comforting mission he asked her the question, "Mother, what do you do when the sirens have given the warning of the approach of enemy aircraft?" to which she replied, "Oh I just reads my Bible a bit and then says 'bugger em' and I goes to bed" This kind of behaviour aptly illustrates the nonchalance of many citizens when under pressure. a stoical don't-careol-damn attitude, but after a persistent series of nightly raids, even the stoutest hearts get faint. The night of November 14-15, 1940. the line Thirty years ago tonight, waves of Luftwaffe bombers attacked Coventry for 11 hours killing 553 people, obliterating much of the city centre, and giving currency to the word Coventration to describe saturation bombing. The ordinary citizen was now in the front line and the horror, heroism and sacrifice of the battlefield was repeated in the city streets.

Of the people who had to take the decisions that kept Coventry alive in the aftermath of the major blitz, there is one survivor, GEORGE HODGKINSON. This article is taken from his autobiography, Sent to Coventry," to be published by Robert Maxwell on December 1 at 50s (soft cover 30s). "Long Terror" of eleven continuous hours of bombing has special memories. The Coventry Committee of the Ministry of Information met on the afternoon of the 14th and I chaired a session at which the committee decided, in view of the trekking, to give a boost to morale by publishing a leaflet illustrating the expectancy of survival in a city with a population of 250,000 and a fatal casualty list of 234 up to that date. On the night of that same day another 553 citizens lost their lives and the leaflet did not appear.

The Ministry of Information had other jobs to do. On the eve of the heavy raid my family. wife and son, aged nine, and an aunt and uncle, settled down, the elders to play a game of solo whist. Our in-laws lived in district known as the target area" and they joined us in order to be outside the critical danger path, but there were no cushy places that fateful night. The hunter's moon" shone at its brilliant best and the amuse balloons glistened like silver sausages in festoons around the city.

They hung suspended high in a manner designed to protect the civilian population from the dive bombers. In the public parks gun sites for the antiaircraft weapons were deployed for protection of the citizens and its industries, and there seemed no reason for undue alarm. The playing cards were dealt. but before the first hand could be played, the sirens sounded the alert and the family dashed for cover under the stairs. The street flreguards for action with stirrup pumps, shovels and sandbags, but the tools we had were totally inadequate, little more than toys against the heavy odds.

By the bright light of the moon the German airmen were able to pick off the balloons one by one and they fell in flames. The way lay open and the civilian population were mercilessly exposed to the full impact and were really in the front line. The tin-hatted fireguards did their best to deal with the casual incendiary bomb, but they rained down in thousands. I saw some freakish results of the bombing; curtains sucked into the jointings of window frames; the surface of a sideboard peppered with particles of glass giving it a diamond-like studded surface: a person rendered naked by bomb blast yet escaping death: a curious case of a woman killed in a shelter who wore ten sets of underclothing; and a victim whose pockets bulged with currency notes. The blast from a land mine swept through our cottage, taking away the roof.

The place was uninhabitable but we crowded under the stairs. and remained there hapless and helpless listenmg to the crashing of houses. At 6 a.m. I went in search of water for tea making, since our supply at the tap had gone. Taking a large Jug to the shopping centre in Moseley Avenue, where the firemen were at work, I asked for a 1111-up from the hose, but my request was refused, because the water came from the drains.

The local shopping centre presented an awful sight, there were human torsos badly aKagazine Tho morning of November 15, 1940. Dead workers pick their way through Nee nobble of Carrestry's mimed streets. burned lying around. the victims of a land mine. I came away with an empty jug in my hand, but on reaching home, to my delight and amazement there were cups of tea, enough to satisfy the whole of the family.

The water for brewing had been ladled a cupful at a time from the water in the tank of the toilet cistern. A bit of native resource shown by Uncle Charlie had pro- duced a welcome "cuppa," the water for it perfectly clean and usable. an oasis in the desert. He had taken steps to safeguard the only source for the next brew by exhibiting a notice "do not pull the chain before lea mg." The topmost question in our minds that day was. "Will the bombers come again at night" We were nerve-racked through lack of sleep and from the terrible sights we had seen.

our home gone, the only option to seek shelter elsewhere. All the relatives who fortunately escaped injury made their way out of the burning city on foot to the home of an aunt and uncle who were farming on a small scale just beyond the city boundary. On November 15. 1910, 15 members of the family slept like pigs on the dairy with roughlystrewn straw for a bed Despite the discomfort, but dead tired, everybody slept soundly. The day following.

I came into town from the country retreat to assess the score. The whole place looked a write-off, smoking ruins everywhere and bomb craters big enough to swallow a bus. All the public utility services were out of action and the roads, to begin with, impassable. King George VI arrived unannounced to be greeted by the Chairman of the War Emergency Committee, Alderman W. E.

Halliwell, and myself. After visiting the cathedral. a heap of tumbled-down stone, he toured the city and lunched with the Mayor. Alderman Jack Moseley. an engine driver, in a very simple manner in the light of a battery of wax candles.

Before leaving for the second part of the tour we dis- cussed the problems to be faced, and the Imperative need for State aid, in order to get the city on its feet again. The King said, Whatever you want. you have my authority to get." This announcement worked like magic, the goodwill and sympathy of His Majesty gave us encouragement and it opened some doors. but could not alter the grim reality and its impact on the citizens, with no homes. no schools, no industries, no services and only half a hospital.

There were emergency Jobs to be done, evacuation of school children, emergency repairs of all kinds, emergency feeding, burying the dead, the rehabilitation of inr dustry and innumerable matters such as Inoculation of work-people against infectious diseases, and the reorientation of the civil defence services. Eighty-fire per rent of rest centres were out of action, but most disturbing of all, there were no rules to work to, no guidance In Reese Security circulars and no directives to local authorities as to how to behave in an emergency such as confronted the Coventry War Emergency Committee. with transport and personnel for removing the rubble and clearing Use roads but we were not abdicating ear ropeautulitirs and intended to stay in cessred. From thee on we had to rely ea maw sources. to originate.

devise and lingewrise, to Rise orders and get things gene. In close collaboration with the State and regional apparatus. A report to the Committee revealed what had happened on the night of "Coventration. Within anhour of Use attack on the had broken iinvW iiia. the'Coatrol Room.

the nerve centre for distributing the services to incidents. had been rendered useless. The telephone line, had been cut, messages could neither come in nor be sent out, the power lines to homes. factories. and institutions did not function because all the public utilities.

gas, water and electricity. were damaged and the sewers exposed. Neither the ambulances nor fire brigade could operate according to the book since 380 bomb crater, blocked the passage of vehicles, the firemen had no water, and the flames from the fires licked across the narrow streets and rendered immobile all transport into the city centre. The casualty service could not get the Injured to the Central Hospital, despite the orders to do so, and the Emergency Medical Service, with a lot of nous. initiame and resourcefulness, properly and sensibly.

without direction from the centre, took the casualties away from the raging fires and bomb-wrecked streets to the hospitals in the outlying towns of Rugby, Nuneaton. Marston Green and elsewhere ft leek Woo to Mime to the loss of awaked meollses. Some Moped thoomiselses to the use of the noes Pro sod to the eating of sword foods laidood of mosso In the desalts and cos fudge MMus hooks had hew loot or des Irwfwd. the shops at the citizens registered were out of action and the re. plenishment of stocks could not be dons overnight.

The very large number of homeless people clearly made first-aid repairs to houses a instter ad iernesey detrasnding quick sedan and In the rirearastaacee The Regional Authority searched the country for tarpaulins to dive temporary roof over and protection from uind and weather. Tilers and slaters were released from active sersiee the field the sponu to the appeal for secondment startled ua. Eteryose who wanted to get out of the armed farces so at seemed had soma ability as tilers and staters. for hundreds of men were drafted into the cits The shortage of tiles compelled workmen to cannibalise the roof work and the mosaic patterns can be seen to this day. After a few days a sober assessment could be made of the total losses and it presided an unmeant list of 4.330 houses.

SOO shops. 73 factories. 2R hotels. RD garages and fllhng stations and 121 (tikes The banks had a charmed life for only one dm appeared. but the central swimming baths and the cathedral were a write.olf.

Out of a total of 75.000 properties 60.000 were damaged either superficially or completely destroyed. Seventy-Rye per rent of the shops in the central area were damaged and the rateable value of the eity fell to a third of the ore-war On account of ete destruction of shopping centres and the disorganisation it caused to the rationing system. and as a gesture to public morale. we abandoned food ration. mg, but the free shopping plan only Waled for two weeks because the strangers beyond the gates trooped into the city on a free for-all shopping spree MUSCLED IN Although we did not fully appreciate the significance of the procedures at the time.

we were pursuing the rough and ready philosophy which when spelled nut read work means wage's. wages means food and food means morale." In accordance this philosophy and the desire to hit back, the working-people muscled in, skilled engineers rolled up their sleeves lake casual labourers, swept the Moors of the damaged factories and salvaged such usable machinery as they could. The displaced labour force, where sari, moved to the newly-built Shadow Factories, garages were tooled up to perform specialised operations and many workers were directed to other parts of the country such as Bangor. Halifax, Scotlaed and other places less vulnerable than the Midlands. The workers in every grade pulled out all the stops and production figures rose steadily.

lty the end of January with the aid of the new factories, the tempo of production was raised to a level as huh as on the day before the blitz. The rehabilitation services were tested again in the heavy raids on the city on April 8 and 10. 1041. They were less intense than in November 1940 and on these nights another S5O fatal casualties were incurred and the communal grave extended to receive them. None of us who lived close to the events of that time, or those who did not.

can measure the impact the attack made on world opinion. The murder of a provincial town was a piece of powerful propaganda on the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, who at the that time were onlookers. It symbolised resistance to fascism. when Britain stood alone ft immortalised the citizen heroes of the blitz and is a part of our history which has few parallels. Copyrlght Wwlikintion SHATTERED All the normal services of the local authority were shattered.

Only two members of the War Emergency Committee, conscientious objectors in the 1914-18 war, reported for duty. Together with the Regional we took stock of the boloeaust and the wreck of the civil defence machine. Everything imaginable had gone wrong and the desperate situation could only be solved by desperate remedies. The Minister of Home Security proposed that the city should be put under "martial law." My colleague and I vigorously contested the suggestion and insisted that the post-blitz recovery administration should be under the control of the local authority. the officers and elected persons and not the civil servants.

We made it known that the military authorities would be welcome FIRE KIWNG The street fire-fighting parties did their beet with limited equipment, but you not save a gas holder with a stirrup pump. As Chairman of the Gas Committee I had seen an exercise of fire killing by water jet and the use of wet clay, but although the drill paid oil in small incidents it did not avail in a big fire. From my post as a fireguard I saw the municipal gas holder going up like the whiff of a huge firework. The men on duty with lumps of wet clay, were using pills to cure an earthquake. Perhaps the most damning criticism could justly be made of the organisation of the fire-fighting service.

A carefully thoughtout plan, so it seemed initially for mutual assistance in fire-fighting between Coventry, Birmingham, Rugby and towns within the No. 9 Region Civil Defence, broadly the West Midlands, had been made. The scheme broke down completely when Cow'entry most needed help from their neighbours. Tile respective local forces had had no exercises together and when joint operations were put to the test, the scheme failed because the couplings of the equipment did not marry up. the hoses and nozzles were dissimilar and in consequence the city had to burn for lack of water.

The Fire Precautions Department of the Ministry of Home Security, profiting from the "guinea pig experience of Coventry. set up a National Fire Bngade Service and a more realistic view of national responsibility emerged in the standardisation of equipment The finest piece of mutual aid came not from exact and specific organisation by the authorities. but from voluntary bodies who. unsolicited, flooded the city, not only with sympathy, but with practical help. The Women's Voluntary Service brought their mobile canteens from all parts of the Midlands and provided cups of tea and sandwiches free of charge for all and sundry.

This spontaneous action acted as a spur to the stricken and homeless population and in the first forty-eight hours after the blitz, 40.000 people were fed from canteens on the streets. No home cooking could be dont since water, gas and electnnty supplies were cut, the citizens were dazed and bewildered and TALK By LESLIE DUCKWORTH Environmental watchdogs HAVE YOU visited Canvey Island recently and, if so. did you pick up the larvae of the moth Euproctis chrysorrhoea and I get stung by as hairs? If so. you rosy be interested to know that, in your interests. the Public Health Department on the island asked the Insect Patholocy Unit of the National Environment Research Council INERC) to extend its project to control those small creatures which have proved a nuisance to holidaymakers.

If you have been bathing recently in the North Sea. it is unlikely that you will have been endangered by plankton; though, indeed, you could be put in peril by the decline in their abundance which the Oceanographic Laboratory in Edinburgh. another activity of NERC. has been noting during the past 20 years over a wide area of the northeast Atlantic and the North Sea. For this may be due to pollution of the seas, or the atmosphere, and a change of two or three per cent a year in the food the seas produce "would have major consequences for good or ill in the course of a decade." Plankton, algae and the birds have become to us what the canary in the cage used to be to the miner warning signals of possible dangers ahead.

I have given these two instances of work being done under the protective umbrella of NERC bemuse I though you might find it as reassuring as I do that. whatever politicians may or may not decide, there are quiet watchdogs of the environment always on guard. though we rarely become aware of their existence unless some trophe occurs, Research Is going on In many Cplaces. including Birmingham WllO3, Professor of Geology, Prof. P.

W. Shotton. Is a member of the Council, which was set up an June, 1963, and in the year covered by the recently published fifth annual report 1, 1969, to March 31, 1970 received a grant from Parliament of 111.833.000, which seems little enough in view of the enormous field which has to be covered, the wide-ranging scope of activities, and that research vessels have to be provided and maintained. Last June, for instance, the Council's National Institute of Oceanoerpahy began taking part with the Americans in a deep-sea drilling project to examine the possibility that remnants of cow tinental crust submerged after North America and Furope were slowly torn apart 200 million years ago. In September the Council established a new body, the Institute for Marine Environmental Research, to advance our knowledge of the marine environment and its biological resources, which becomes of ever-increasing importance in view of the extent to which we are now polluting the seas and the need for finding new sources of food.

Perhaps the watchdog which comes most Into the news is ate Experimental Station of the Nature Conservancy at Monks Wood, Huntingdonshire. It had an open week recently which I was sorry to miss, though I was lucky enough to have a talk with its director, Dr. Kenneth Mellanby, at a recent Soil Association conference In the north Midlands. If anything goes wrong with pesticides, for instance, or like wreck of seabirds, it Is usually to Monks Wood that the remains are sent for analysis and investigation of the cause, as happened with the 10.00043.000 deaths of birds in the Irish Sea last year. There will be a full report out on this shortly, but i understand that It does not point to any cause beyond dispute.

Monks Wood, itself a nature reserve. with its own trail, when experiments are carried out, is both a research and an educational centre and runs courses at Postgraduate, undergraduate and other levels. "All the work." says Dr. ktellanby in an introduction to the Open Week programme, "is aimed at finding out how man's activities could be modified to allow wildlife to survive," a laudable and very necessary aim, it seems to me. Currently, about 50 different projects hare been undertaken in the toxic chemicals and wildlife section alone.

Frogs are declining in numbers. Is this due to pesticides or to the disappearance of ponds.ingt aken or oo fordissection many specimens Why do there seem to be fewer butterflies about' Is it insecticides again, or loss of habitat, The section is trying to find the answers. To quote Dr. Mellanby again: "The land has changed, but our land is always It changes with the weather and with the seasons, but most of all it changes with the activities of man." And that Is why man must keep eye on himself with bodies like NERC and research stations like Monks Wood. EUROPEAN CONSERVATION YEAR EVENTS November 17: WE A course lecture.

Pollution in the Marine Environment." by Dr. E. Morgan, Polytechnic, Wolverhampton. 7.30 November 2s: Conservation Society lecture. "An Optimum Population for Britain." by Prot.

J. H. Fremlin. Lecture Room 2, Birmigham and Midland Institute, Margaret Street, Birmingham 3, 7.30 p.m. November 2n: Conservation Brains Trust.

Council Chamber, Shire Hall, Shrewsbury. 8 p.m. GARDENING Choosing FOR SOME years now I have made recommendations for dwarf narcissi hybrids, such as Peeping Tom or February Gold. I make no apology for having done so as I feel these are very much underrated. What I do apologise for, however, is the omission of any similar treat- ment of the dwarf tulips.

This does not mean I am not interested in these lovely spring bulbs: I was growing them as long ago as the mid-thirties. From those early experiences, I learned that dwarf tulips, and tulip species in particular. are more exacting in their requirements than the little daffodils. In most cases they crave for a real baking In the summer, and unless one takes them along to the Costa Brava for the holidays they have little guarantee of getting that sort of treatment here. Yet I have always loved their bright colours, and so was more than a little interested in trials which the Royal Horticultural Society began a few years ago.

Now the Rrst results are to hand so that one can choose those likely to succeed in the garden with a greater degree of certainty. One of my favourites, and one of the most readily obtainable, is T. eichleri. This grows about eight or nine Inches high. has what can only be described as apple green foliage, and fairly large flowers.

The colour is brilliant. almost true red with ajet black heart ringed with gold. The shape is even more perfect. squarish with a definite point at the centre of each petal. I find this the best and easiest tulip to grow in bowls provided It is kept cool until the flowers begin to show colour.

At Wl'ley. it has done In the open although, like the rest. it Improves when conditions are dry. dwarf By H. KNOWLES The VlAtef I'IV tulip open.

to rOvtial lovely Centro. tulips Equally gay is ix ih yellow T. urunuensis. only inches high. The outside of the petals Is often touched with green or bronze.

but when fully open it is the dazzling colour of the inside that makes this such fine spring bulb. The flowers are rather star-shaped and provided the bulbs are planted in a sunny position and In poorish, well drained or gritty soil, it will thrive. T. chrysantha is better known yellow dwarf, although here again the velour from which the species derives its name is most nounced on the inside of the petals. The outside is more than a little flushed with rose.

It Is a very graceful little tulip with a long flower that opens to a star. T. turkestanica is taller than the foregoing. up to a foot high. It has the merit of settling down well In the garden, thriving and increasing better than most.

However, its colour is not the most exciting and a further dwdvantage to mi mind is the fact that its leaves seem disproportionately lade for th blooms. It is very hardy. and indeed will bloom early in March in favourable seasons. The colour Is white with a deep yellow blotch In the centre. T.

tarda. the "late" tulip, has similar colourings although in this case the ground is yellow and the petal tips white. although there is some green and pink on the outside. It is very dwarf, not more than six inches high. and a splendid grower.

In spite of the name it Is not the latest to bloom. That distinction goes to T. whittallii, at least as far as my experience gals. It is well Into May before this species Powers. The colour I very unusual.

a mixture of orange and brown and bronze so that it has an autumn look about It. It Is a little taller than most yet still short enough to go on the rockery. All these species do well in pots and pans. They need no protection in the winter, being perfectly hardy, but growing them In containers enables one to put them Indoors. in a shed.

greenhouse or a spare room, where they can thoroughly dry off and get all the baking they need during the summer. It is not too late to plant them. even outside, although one should do this as early as possible to avoid disappointment the first year. Of course, there are very many hybrids between species and the garden tulips, notably the fosteriana. grelitii and kauffmanniana hybrids.

All do very well in the garden and are especially lovely in bowls since so many have most decorative foliage, striped and stippled with brown or purple. They are also much earlier to bloom than the usual run of garden tulips and this can be an advantage where one is anxious to set out summer bedding. In response to MY recent appeal for information about Jackman's variety of Huta graveolens, I can now say that It does appear to be hardy in the Midlands. Since I wrote I have seen It growing In the village of Ihnington. in Warwickshire.

and I have received a most and interesting. letter from Hall Green reader. The plant has sunrived the last two winters in Birmingham and is saki to he growing well. As a point of Interest my informant auotes from the catalogue of Peter Trenear, Eversley Cross. Hants.

from whom he obtained the plant: This herb used to be scattered about the Law Courts to hide the smell of the prisoners Come the newt garbage strike two people, at T. least, will be well prepared. I aturday 1 1 Al Alf i i 1 Alb. li rj AV i 4 d.4_t Vtalt e. ,..,0 .40 r.

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