Spring in the Garden

Fitted with a brightly painted ,close-boarded wooden door a second world war reinforced concrete bomb shelter makes a lovely garden shed.

That is conditional however on requiring to fit any items over 80cm wide through the aperture which was only intended to facilitate entry for those on an austere wartime diet and with the catalyst of the warm flames of  an incendiary bomb licking their nether regions The back-gardens of my home city, Hull still retain a good number of the concrete cuboid structures. This is not in any way because of their versatility, of being pleasing to the eye or just downright useful.

The sole reason for their stubborn survival is that they are too difficult to get rid of. Not surprising really based on the initial design brief to protect the citizens of Hull or what was referred to as the anonymous 'East Coast Town'. When I first moved to Hull in the late 1970's there was a determined effort by home owners to clear these concrete block-houses to free up some more garden or to give enough room for a driveway or garage.

This condemnation of the bomb shelter seems to have been a natural progression for the same revolutionary movement, such as that encouraged by Reader's Digest Book of Home Improvements to create through lounges, serving hatches and remove chimney breasts.

Many shelters had sunk into the soft clay soils of the city, others were listing seriously from the partial failure of the same ground conditions, a few were dens of immoral or illegal purpose and the rest overgrown, stopped up or serving as an emergency toilet for the poorly organised.

Unfortunately for two inheritors of the shelters they met a tragic end through adopting equally mad cap methods of demolition. No doubt the seed of an idea for the best methods to remove the immoveable mass was sown in a pub, or on the bus or in the smoking room at work. Probably seemed like a good idea at the time but with the luxury of 40 years of hindsight I do not ever recall seeing any glowing endorsements on the following;

Method 1;
The Theory; Stand inside the shelter and sledgehammer out the concrete walls.
The Practice; The supporting walls for the 5 ton roof are sufficiently weakened to cause collapse.
The Outcome; Death and  a considerable pile of debris for surviving loved ones to filter through.

Method 2.
The Theory. Build a huge fire inside the shelter and when raging block up the sole aperture.
The Practice. The reinforcement in the concrete heats up and explodes in a huge release of dense materials.
The Outcome. Death but a pile of considerably smaller sized debris for loved ones to filter through.

It will only take one positive comment on a bomb shelter from Phil Spencer and Kirstie Allsop to make them the next best thing  for discerning home owners. I expect Estate Agents will then wax lyrical on the post-war- industrial-retro-chic- cubes in order to secure a buyer.

It will not be long before imitation bomb shelters will be available in authentic reconstituted concrete, an olde worlde yorkstone version, shiplap cladding and upvc profiles and available on a drive-away basis from all leading DIY outlets.

One concession for such items for the residents of Hull on the broad Humber flood plain would of course be an ability to float.