air raids and bombings

[matthay]

this is completely hyperthetical but was just wondering have any of britains cities/towns still got functional air raid shelters and have we got any air raid alarms just in case we were every attacked by air or by rockets

is this security provision may even though the likelhood of attack is very slim

[RATTER15]

Im sure there are many towns with air raid shelters that could soon be put into use but at the moment being used for other things, as for the air raid sirens, I do know of one on top of an old air raid shelter, dont expect it works though and if it did work and was sounded people would stand around wondereing what the hell all the noise was about.

[chrissiekins]

I was flicking through the property ads in Brighton the other day, and a house was up for sale complete with original Anderson bomb shelter!!

[alvin100]

There is a little known but vast underground shelter in Manchester, It was built to be able to completely run a functioning government in the event of nuclear attack, It had railway lines, phone exchanges, offices etc and the entrance could be sealed with a huge block of concrete.

there are piccies of it on the net if you search, its fascinating.
I believe Britains air raid warning system was scrapped many years ago.

[Big Al1st]

Hi Matt, Where i live there is about 60 miles of tunnels where the bath stone used to be mined.
Down there, there is what is called an "underground city" where the government would go in times of nuclear war.The Royal family would go there as well.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire

Go on the Wiltshire Radio link and you can get a virtual tour and see the rooms. Alot of stuff is still down there although the place is being run down. You can see the telephone exchange and kitchens ect.

The MOD have sites there as well which are still used by all three services. Until recently all the main RN spares used to be underground.

During the second world war there were factories underground where they used to make for example Spitfire engines.

Some developer bought one of the complexes and wanted to sell units off to the public as underground bunkers but they could not get planning permission. Instead a wine company took the complex and uses it as a wine storage warehouse.

It is certainly worth looking at the link Rgds Al

[Narolines]

There's still an air-raid siren about 500m from my house. It certainly worked up to about 10/15 years ago, when it was last tested, but it hasn't been heard since then so it may no longer be functional.

[heathfield]

Photo I can remember when, back in the 50's, Dr Who Tardis-type police boxes were common. These, and other strategic points in towns and cities, were fitted with air-raid sirens to warn against Soviet attack. The government, so as not to cause alarm, made the lame excuse that they were being installed to provide an audible call to policemen on the beat! Eh? No-one in the country believed them.
Apart from military command bases, the only shelters constructed at the time were for royalty, the government, and local government officials. In the event of a nuclear strike, the rest of the population would have to crouch under their kitchen tables! See how they really care about us all?
The sirens were eventually removed, though some were still in place in the 1990s.
As to shelters, some attempts have been made to keep examples as listed buildings, with varying success. I should think that today only some military command posts would remain in a functional state.

[spudqueen]

There's a nuclear bomb shelter just outside the village where I live, it's been up for sale a couple of times but up to now nobody has bought it. (It does cost about half a million quid though!).

[beale]

How odd, I was going to post an answer about the house next door to me in Brighton that has recently been sold and has a fully functioning anderson shelter in it. Looks like chrissiekins beat me to it! Small world.

Oh well, I can at least verify that it is definitely there in all its corrugated iron glory.

[gary baldy]

You would be amazed what is below our feet - and these fellas know all about it!

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/index.shtml

[reinganum]

Like Ratter said, probably most "functional" shelters are being used for something else (principally storage). I heard that a particularly deep one had recently been sold to a wine merchant because the temperature/humidity down there was almost constant. Other firms have used them for document storage, for the same reason.

Where I live in Sussex the sirens were used for about 15 years after the war to summon the fire brigade, until more modern systems were installed in firemen's homes. The "all-clear" is a steady note at around 500 Hz which is about the B natural above middle C.

[Ralph]

There's an air raid siren in the Southampton docks somewhere that goes off to signal the start and end of lunchtime for the workers, or at least that's what myself and my co-workers deduced when we worked in an office near there. I suppose if it went off to signal an imminent attack of some sort these days, all that would happen is a load of guys in flouescent jackets would start to salivate and head off to the canteen!

Also, in my first student house in the Freemantle area of Southampton, we had an Anderson shelter in the back garden. I was never in it because it was almost completely occupied by a large old fridge and it was a bit of an assault course through the undergrowth to get there. Typical student house really.