Bomb Alley page 5

                                      continuation of my life NO 5

We now have builders in and around our school,and they are erecting  brick shelters that we shall use if there is an air raid whilst we are at scool,and we have been told that we will be giong to the village hall in sturry to be given gas masks,we have to go in order of where we live so me and my Mum  Derek and Allen Jean and Pam Butler will walk down ours selves to get them together,the parents will also be issued with theirs at the same time.when we ariv e at the hall we take ourplaces on benches around the room,and a man shows us what the gas masks look like,there are ones for the very young babies,others are for profesional people  like Air Raid Wardens and fire men, and of course the police,the one for the little babies are coloured red ,and have  a big clear plasict face so that the mothers will be able to keep watch on them,and so that the babies can see their mums,they also hav a big rubber flat nose so they can breath out easier than ours,because our are the normal grey rubber ones,with a metal filter on the bottom of them,eventualya man come sto me and ask me to my chin into the lower part and pull the rubber straps over my head then he ajusts these to suit me,he then say to breath naturaly,when  I breath out the rubber around my cheeks makes a flaping sound.which makes me laugh,as it sounds like Brrr Brrr Brrr sound,everyone sees this as a something funny and we all laugh,once we are all fitted  with our masks and all are sattisfied with them we are given a cardboard box to keep them in,and this box has a piece of string which we can put over our    shoulders to carry them,we are told that we must carry them everywhere we go.when I get home mum and I show Dad our little masks, he has a supprise to show us the one he has been issued with and its one of the profesional ones his mask is in a canvas bag which is on his chest   his mask has two big round eyes glasses and a  curragated rubber hose which goes into   the bag on his chest for breathing,this is a profesional  mask unlike my Mums and mine. Dad says he  has joined the auxiliary fire service as a driver for the little fire engine car,that will be used for small fire fighting jobs,leaving the profesionals to deal with any large  fires, the car that Dad and his other fellow fire fighters have is  just a private car with a tow ball that can take a trailer with a large barrell of water, this has a motorised pump attached, but they also have a smaller pump which is known as a stirrup pump,this is one which normaly would be used to pump up your tyres on a car,it has two small flaps which you  open out from the bottom of the pump so that you can put your feet on to, to hold it down when you raise the handle to suck up water from a small bucket or something,then as you push the handle down the water is forced out through the hose attached to the little pump.they also have ladders which are carried on the car roof,some of the other  Dads have joined the A R P or the home gaurd known as { Dads Army }so must men have joined something or other to help out in an emergency,
       We are issued with sticky tape which we must put on the glass windows of our houses this should prevent the glass flying about should there be a bomb explodeing near by.causing the window to be broken.also we have  have very heavy curtains  to put up at the windows to help keep any light from being seen from outside.of course there are no street lights now, and cars have very small slits in a mask to stop the light from being too bright and showing up from the air.but no one is allowed to use their cars now anyway except if you are a Doctor or police.
                                                                                                          more  later.at some time.
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