I think it was Churchill who said that 'you can fool some of the people some of the time and all of the people, etc,etc. but I may be wrong.

Any exiles as old as me that remember the bomb (singular I think ) falling on Lisburn. I believe it knocked down a shop near Genesie's chip shop. Certainly there was a fallen down building there for some time.

I can remember standing out on the back step at home, in Warren Park, at night, seeing the flashes of the bombs falling on Belfast.
I also remember that some people vacated Lisburn, when there was a chance of air-raids, and went to country homes during the night. Blaris was a popular spot.

I remember my young sister having a red and black 'mickey mouse' gas mask while we had all black ones.

The ARP came around after issuing them and taped another filter on the air intake. Must have been a newer strain of nerve gas.

And we survived. What a time
Sean

Sean
I was born 1944 and was born at the "locks " at Lisnatrunk. I remember when we left the house 1950 after my mother died in the back room was an gas protection device for babies. It was similar to a small cradle where the child was placed inside and closed hermetic, air was then pumped in by hand operating a filter membrane. My father once told me tha my mother,s greatest fear was they would both be killed and nobody would be there to pump air into me inside the cradle. When I was young the older people around Hilden used to talk about the air wardens, men who went around to ensure the blackout was enforced. Firewatchers were also employed at Hilden mill to watch for and report the approach of German bombers.
Donald.
By the way were you related to Willy John McArdle and his Aunt Minnie from Hilden?

Donald, Willy John was my uncle. Paddy, his brother, was my dad. Margaret was his wife and Aunt Minnie was his mother( I think). Aunt Minnie was a wonderful person.

Sean

I remember the McArdles well, Willy John,s wife died very young and Aunt Minnie lived with him and minded the 5 kids, she was very short sighted or had an eye disorder if I remember correctly. Micheal and John were twins, born in 1944 and in my class in Hilden school. Anne, Pat and Jim were older. Jim joined the civil service in England, Willy John worked in the mechanic shop store in Hilden mill, the family moved to a flat in Lawnmount Cresent and shortly after moving he came home from work and died in an armchair in front of the fire, very sad.
Donald

Strange as it may seem, during the "Blitz" of 1941, when the children of Belfast were evacuated to the "country", I was staying with my aunt in Velsheda Park in the Ardoyne area of Belfast as my Mother was ill at the time. During a paticularly bad raid I was pushed in to the "Anderson" steel shelter in the living room and sustained a badly cut nose, I still carry the mark to this day. After the raid everyone thought I was cut by flying glass, as the windows of all the houses had been blown out by bomb blasts, it was only later that I was able to explain I had hit the corner of the shelter when my aunt pushed me in. However during that raid three people in one family in the end house were killed and thirty others in the area were badly injured.
N.B. Anderson shelters were used mainly for the protection of children during "air raids" and as dining tables by many families during that time.

Beano

Hi Donald,

We had a device like the one you described, and like your mother, my mother had the same worries, what if she were killed, who would look after the baby (my young sister), my Dad was in the service, like many more Dads. As well as that she was not enjoying the best of health at that time and had myself and my two brothers to look after as well, tough times. God bless her, she survived it all and lived to be ninety one.

Beano

i remember the shelters in gregg st they were great for playing hide and seek in i was born in 1937 lived during the week with my grannie in leamington pl in the low road because we where close to hilden mill whenever the bombers came we had to run to the brae away from the house my cousins from east down view carried me as i could,nt run that fast but after the war was over the anti tank barricades still existed on the dublin rd just past the hospital thank god we all survived

Countydowner,
could I ask what number you stayed at in Leamington?

its a long time ago i think it was number 23 a couple up from davy mccormick,s house

Your granny would be Mrs Connors then.

you got it right connor how did you know

I know lots of things about the Low road as my name suggests. What school did you go to?

Sean,
It was Abraham Lincoln who coine that famous saying. it is still true today as some of our politicians are finding out.

Thanks LR and others,

So it was Abe Lincoln who said it.How about all the other war memories you exiles guys raise? I had forgotten about the tank traps on the Dublin Rd, just at the bottom of our street.

The air-raid shethers in the 'plots' just behind where Archie Briggs lived. The shelters always smelled!

We had a shelter down the bottom of our garden. Dad dug a pit, steps and all, roofed it with timbers and covered it all with the soil dug out: nice red stuff.
We kids thought it a wonderful place to play.

Like you all say, thank God we never needed them

Sean

I think the Lowroaders took refuge on McConnells hill where the Rickard and McGuiness familes lived. The Hilden people had air raid shelters, between Mill and Bridge St, in the school playgrounds and at the top of Bridge St. I remember the ones in the playgrounds as late as 1960, the one in the boys was boarded up and used as a store but in the girls playground it was accessable, very dark and scary, we ( Tommy Roberts, Jim Spence etc etc ) used to climb on top and take a running jump from it into the field behind the school, sometimes landing in cow clap from the grazing beasts.
Have a nice Easter all
Donald

We took refuge under the kitchen table with a blanket wrapped round the four legs.
There was a shelter in the field across from Morrow's shop but I was too frightened to go into it.
I remember the one in the boys' playground at Hilden school but it wasn't the most pleasant of places to go into and was eventually locked up.

Who remembers the " Blitz Square " in Belfast? I thimk it was somewhere near the " big Co op" in at the top of York St, as boys we used to go there to an Amusement park and I seem to remember a Scotsman Hector selling delf and stuff like haircream and pens from the back of a lorry.
Donald