Gimme Shelter, 3

In 1980 the town was 120 years old. None of the original buildings survived, of course. They were just temporary shelters slapped-up with whatever materials were at hand, like packing cases etc., and usually roofed with canvas. But, the town was that old, it was founded in 1860 to cater for the early gold-rushes.

As time went on, buildings and structures came and went and slowly became more substantial, solid and enduring. Probably the most solid of them all was built in the 1940's.

The air-raid shelter, buried underground, was still as good as new, despite several series of earthquakes, some devastating floods and the worst efforts of amateur decorato.In 1980, the shelter was 38 years old. Of the people who lived in it, only Julie was older than that, she was 48. Her son, Jimmy, was 31 and her grandsons, Ronnie and Reggie, were 12 and 11.

They were both stunningly good-looking boys. They had a touch of Asian blood, their mother was part Vietnamese, part French and part American GI, but that's another story. Their Asian heiritage showed only in their straight coal-black hair, dark eyes and slight builds. They had pakeha features and very, very, pale white skin – their grandmother claimed that that was because they spent far too much time indoors, but they didn't really. They went out and about as often as anyone did, they just didn't tan. They burnt if they weren't careful, so they were and they stayed pale.

Interestingly, it seemed that they were both queer, probably. Neither of them was at all interested in girls, as their friends and classmates were beginning to be. The attractions that they were developing were towards the boys, but not each other.

They got along together well enough, really well actually, but they were just not interested in each others' dangly bits. There was no novelty there, they'd bathed and showered together since forever, and there was no attraction at all.

Sometimes Ronnie thought that his brother was the only boy in town around his age who he didn't think was sexy. He was tightly wound, full of hormones and bursting with pent-up sexual frustration. In the privacy of his room, he was wanking so often and so hard that he was almost wearing the skin off it.

His dick got so sore sometimes that he had to lay off and give it a rest, and then he had wet dreams, about boys of course. What he wanted, what he needed, was someone to do it with. But who? The only boy his age who he knew was gay was Nathan Rooney and he wasn't going there! He wasn't that desparate. Rooney was all soft and fluttery, squealy and girly, and everyone knew that he was queer.

Or, maybe he was that desparate, but he still wasn't going there. He didn't want everyone knowing that he was queer too. He didn't want to be treated like Rooney was, that wouldn't be good. Mostly wouldn't be good.

It was a funny thing and not much talked about, but Ronnie knew that Nathan Rooney was getting far more sex than he was. That wouldn't be hard to do, he wasn't getting any, but Rooney was – lots of it.

By some strange logic, it was okay for guys to go around to his house and do queer sex stuff with Rooney as long as everyone knew that they weren't queer themselves. Ronnie didn't understand that, it made no sense. He worried that he was never going to understand teenagers even though he'd soon be one himself. The straight boys abused the queer boy in public, giving him a hard time, and then they went around and gave him a different sort of hard time in private.

That was an open secret, but no-one talked about it, ever. Would it be worth his while going around there himself? Hell no! What if they knew that he liked it? But then, why did they do it if they didn't like it? Strange world.

People were weird, it was a confusing world they lived in. Ronnie didn't understand the rules, but everyone else seemed to. Reggie did. He was younger than him but he had a busy social life already. Ronnie didn't, he kept himself to himself and quietly followed his own interests. It was safer that way.

They had a large model train layout, HO scale. It took up most of the space in one of the big rooms and had been growing and developing there ever since their dad was a boy. Ronnie and Reggie were said to be part owners now, but it was still their dad's hobby really, they just helped him because he'd never grown out of it.

Ronnie spent some time in the train room, mostly working on the landscaping, but he got bored with it. The trains did look great when they were running properly, but so often they weren't! The smallest little thing could cause a derailment and it got frustrating. Also, a lot of the tracks were getting old and they needed constant cleaning and maintainance if the trains were going to run.

Their dad was the real train fan in the family, Reggie had no interest at all and Ronnie was heading that way too. Besides, he'd found something better – a whole library of his own.

The old farm cottage, now used mostly as a living room, on sunny days anyway, was close to the street in Swainson Street and it covered the stairs down to the shelter on the West-side entrance. There were 4 entrances underground, on the north, south, east and west sides of the block, but the South-side one had been filled in and buried. A workshop was built on top of it.

The North-side entrance, off the main street, was through a little old two-storied shop building that was obviously there long before the shelter was built. It wasn't used as a shop anymore and hadn't been for a long time. The big front-room, with the wall of white-painted windows, was last used as Defence Department offices and a recruiting office during the last war. Now it was just empty.

The shop owners' living quarters, upstairs, consisted of an 'L' shaped hallway which included the kitchen area with the dunny at one end and the bathroom at the other. Inside the L was the old living-room which the boy's grandmother used for a sewing-room, it had big windows and good light.

There were two bedrooms at the front looking down at the main street. Reggie had one for his own purposes, which included entertaining his vistors. Ronnie didn't want to know what they were doing in there. Ronnie had the other room, a play-room in earlier years, now it was his own private reading-room, and he had a lot of available reading.

He had his own personal library, hundreds of old books, mostly in boxes and in teetering stacks in the back-room which was full of them. No-one remembered it, but the shop used to be a private lending-library back before the Army took it over – the 'DVD rentals' of the 1920's and 30's. Now the books were all Ronnie's, none of the others were interested in them.

Most of them, westerns and romances, were dry dusty old stuff, but there were some great stories amongst them and he loved the historical novels. Even the kids' stuff was interesting. So, in their long, wet, winter and spring, he spent his days alone, curled up on the sofa in his room and reading. Summer was coming on, the sunshine outside was beckoning and it was too nice out there to be inside all of the time, so he started going fishing – actually dangling bait off the wharf while he sat reading in the sunshine.

Late one afternoon, Ronnie was quietly minding his own business there on the wharf but he couldn't help noticing the people around him. A small group of maori kids arrived and settled near him. There were just 4 of them, 3 boys and a girl, but they were so loud and busy it seemed like more. Ronnie tried to keep his eyes on his book, but kept glancing at the antics next to him.

There was one boy amongst them who was still and quiet. Ronnie couldn't help noticing him because he stood out from the others. Each time he glanced at him, the boy was stting looking and smiling at him, so he had a good look, and then he smiled back.

He knew him from school, knew who he was anyway. He was James Manawatu and he was in year 8 the same year as Ronnie was. Apart from being in the same classes, he'd never had much to do with him. He never had much to do with anyone really. His best friend was his brother, how pitiful is that?

Anyway, Manawatu was a nice-looking kid. His medium-length dark-brown hair had a slight wave in it, his skin-tone was quite light, like a deep tan, and his big brown eyes were, well, big. He had a great smile, it lit up his face and he looked like a nice kid.

Ronnie was wondering how he could start a conversation? He wasn't good at that sort of thing. But he didn't get a chance anyway, one of the other boys pulled a flapping fish out of the water. He killed it, and then they all ran off back in the direction they'd come from. Boy went with them, of course.

That was what they called James Manawatu – 'Boy'. Everyone did. It was a funny sort of a nickname, of course he was a boy, they all were – well, all except the girls. He went back to reading his book.

A few quiet minutes later, someone came along, sat down next to him and said, “Hey, Ronald.”

“Ronnie,” he answered. “I'm called Ronnie, not Ronald. Hey James.”

“Boy,” he grinned. “I'm called Boy, not James. You catching anything?”

“A cold, maybe. Nothing else. I haven't had a nibble.”

“What are you using for bait?”

“I dunno, just a lump of meat. It might be lamb, I found it in the fridge.”

“Cooked, is it? You shouldn't use cooked meat for fish. They like something smelly.”

“Maybe I should use my feet? Expert on fishing are you?”

“Me? I'm an expert on nothing, but I've done some.”

“Probably more than me. I'm not that worried anyway. It's a nice day to sit in the sun with my book.”

“You're reading a book when you don't have to? I only read school stuff, when I've got to.”

“Hey! I like reading.”

“Good for you. What're you reading?”

“Umm, a book?”

“Ha ha! What's it called?”

“Treasure Island. It's by Robert Louis Stevenson and it's a classic. I've never read it before, I'm not sure why.”

“So you like old books?”

“Yeah, I do. Just as well too, I've got hundreds of them.”

“Nah, I'd rather watch TV.”

“Well I wouldn't. A good story is far better than any of the crap you see on TV.”

“Maybe you're right. We don't have books at home anyway. The kids'd just wreck them. Damm, I've gotta go – Kuia's looking for me.”

“Kuia?”

“My Grandmother. She'll be wanting help with the shopping. Looks like it's me again. See you round, Ronnie.”

“Like a record. Yeah, see you, Boy.”

They exchanged a grin and Boy ran over to the woman with all of the Supermarket bags. Ronnie smiled as he watched him go. He was a nice kid.

He saw him again at school next day. They ate lunch together, which was good, and Boy walked home with him after school. When they came to the corner of his street, they stopped and Ronnie said, “This is it. Home sweet home. Want to come in for a drink or something?”

“I'd like to, but I can't. I've got to get home, my dad will be waiting for me.”

“Oh. Some other time then?”

“Yeah, that'd be good. See you tomorrow, Ronnie.”

“That'll be good too. Bye, Boy.”

It was the same each day for the rest of the week. They were getting along fine together at school and walked home together afterwards, but that was it. Boy had no time to spare, every day he had to be somewhere. Ronnie was getting pissed. He liked the kid and enjoyed their time together, there just wasn't enough of it. Also, there were things that he was hoping to do that they couldn't do at school.

On Thursday, instead of stopping at his street as per usual, Ronnie walked on with Boy. He wanted to see where they lived.

He was a bit disappointed when they got there, it was just an ordinary house. He wasn't sure what he expected to see but not this. There was a lot of cars in the drive though; it was full.

“Boy! Where ya been? I've been waitin'. C'mon, in the car, we've gotta go.”

“Coming, Unc. I've got to go, Ronnie. We're getting a sheep in for the weekend.”

“A sheep for the weekend? What're you going to do with it?” Ronnie leered.

“Well not that!” Boy laughed. “We're going to eat it, of course. Uncle is putting a hangi down tomorrow. I'll see you at school, 'bye Ronnie.”

“Yeah. See you then. 'Bye, Boy.”

'Damm', he thought as he walked away home. 'Damm, damm and double damm!' Fifty per cent of their conversations seemed to be Hello and Goodbye. Where they ever going to spend some decent time together?

He wondered if Boy liked model trains? Most kids did and his dad had a huge layout. Maybe that'd tempt him? He asked him at school next day.

“Little trains? That's like kids' stuff, isn't it?”

“No it's not. Not like dad does it. So, do you want to come and see?”

“Yeah, I guess. Sometime but not this time. We're going to be busy thius weekend. It's my Koru's birthday and there's a huge party. All the family is coming and I'm going to be tied-up looking after the little ones and stuff.”

“Oh. Damm. Got a big family, have you?”

“A big family? No, I haven't – it's a bloody huge family, like they're all in a competion to see who can have the most kids. We're going to take our country back by out-breeding all you Whitey bastards. The only way you can survive is if you come and breed with us”

“Me, making babies? Can't see that ever happening.” ('Oh-oh. What did I go and say that for?')

It was okay, Boy just grinned at him. “You're not a breeder? Im not either.”

'Oh??' Ronnie thought. Did that mean what he hoped it meant? It looked like it might.

Boy pushed his shoulder and said, “Maybe we can be not-breeders together.”

“Together? Yeah, I'd like that.”

“Me too. I'd like that a lot.”

He did mean that! Ronnie was delighted. He felt like grabbing him and hugging him right then and there, but he couldn't do that. Not in the middle of the school. Dammit. All they could do was to grin at each other and they did that – majorly.

“So, some other time, when you're not so busy, you'll come to my house and see my trains and stuff?”

“Sure. I'd like that. I really want to see your stuff.”

“I'll show you mine if you show me yours.”

“I'm planning on that!”

They grinned again. Then, they had to go back into school. Dammit.

The rest of Ronnie's day was a complete waste of time. He didn't have a clue what anyone was talking about. His body was there but his mind was away in other places. All he could think about was Boy Manawatu and what he wanted to do with him.

They would be doing it, wouldn't they? They would, he was sure of it. The only question was when would they? Soon, he hope, but not this weekend, obviously.

After school, walking home, Boy was ahead of him with a couple of excited-looking girls. A car stopped and they all got into the back together. Ronnie watched them go and didn't concentrate on what he was doing. He walked into a tall kid standing there.

“Damm. Watch where you're going, Dork!”

“Okay, okay. Sor – ry!” Ronnie stepped around him.

“Don't be smart, Honky,” the older boy growled. “I hate smart-arses.”

Ronnie kept his mouth shut and kept walking. That was one mean-looking dude. He was not about to tangle with him!

Gimme Shelter, 2

The cottage had been relocated to the west-end side-street, well separate from the brothers' sheds and yards along the east-end street.Stephen's shed was on the south-side street and there was still a lot of empty space.

It would never be much good for gardens with nothing but sand over top of all that concrete, but Julie did manage to establish some small, well-manured plots. It was easy digging anyway.

The cottage was soon looking fantastic – all fresh and bright with a coat of sunny yellow paint and a green roof. Stephen helped some, but he was busy with his new business and Julie did most of the work herself, despite her flourishing pregnancy.

Their baby, a boy named James Abraham, or Jimmy for short, arrived with a minimum of fuss. He was born on the due date and arrived in the early afternoon, which was most considerate of him.

Julie was a worker, a real toiler and she wasn't happy unless she had far too much to do. The enforced 5 day stay in the hospital's maternity ward was driving her nuts and she couldn't wait to get out of there and back to home.

But, what was she going to do then? The cottage was all spruced-up and she had nothing to do all day apart from looking after the baby and he was only little and slept most of the time anyway. Most of the day, that is – not the night – Little Swine!

Lying there in the hospital bed, thinking, she came up with a scheme of her own. They had all that flat, well-drained space with a solid base, why not rent it out? They could put up some sheds and fences and rent storage space. It would be something to do and an easy income once it was set up.

Stephen was reluctant, but he went along with it to keep his wife happy. He was amazed at how well it all went. There was obviously a need for reasonable-rate storage space for cars, trucks, trailers and boats etc. Even the Town Council leased some space, which was ironic really.

Time passed, some years went by and Jimmy was soon joined by a brother and two sisters before he was even at school. They loved living in their little cottage, it was warm and cosy and so handy to work and everything that they never wanted to move. However, their family was growing and they were running out of room.

Julie wanted to simply add a couple of rooms out at the back, but Stephen wasn't keen on that, there'd be no space for the kids to play outside in. He thought that they could do it if they demolished one of the storage sheds, but Julie wasn't having that. She was making money there.

It was 4 year old Jimmy and 3 year old Stevie who found a solution that was to change their lives.

Stephen was working in his garage, Julie needed supplies for the evening meal and Jimmy and Stevie were busily digging in their sand-pit area outside the back-door. Julie put the girls into their double pushchair to duck around the corner to the grocer's. The boys were happy where they were, so she just left them playing there. She'd only be gone for a couple of minutes.

They were stuck in the shop for much longer than she'd planned on. The place was busy, the storekeeper, Mr. Oxnam, was in a talkative mood and when both of the grandmothers – Julie's mother and Stephen's one – arrived together, everyone had to stop and admire the beautiful babies.

She finally got what she'd come for and hurried home. The day was getting cold already, she hoped that her fire hadn't gone out. Back at home, she took the babies and the groceries in through the front-door and stoked the fire up. Once it was recovering nicely, she popped the girls into their play-pen and started unpacking. It was very quiet out at the back so she looked out to check on the boys. There was no sign of them and what on earth did they have in the sand-pit?

It looked like a pair of long wooden doors standing on edge. Where had they come from? Maybe they thought that they were going to build a hut. She went outside for a closer look and, Whoah!

There was a big rectangular hole between the doors and concrete steps disappearing down underground. The old air-raid shelter! No-one had thought of that in years, but it was down there. Jimmy and Stevie must have found one of the entrances and opened it up. Were they down there?

“Jimmy! Stevie! Are you down there?” She stood at the top of the stairs and yelled. Stupid question really, of course they were. Where else would they be?

Nowhere else. There was a flicker of light and Jimmy appeared at the foot of the stairs with a lit candle in his hand.

“James Martin. Where did you get that candle?”

“From the cupboard,” he grinned up at her. “Come and see, Mumma. Come see what we found. There's a whole big house down here, rooms and rooms! It's great.”

“Well, I . . . Where's Stevie?”

“Exploring. He says going to find the treasure. He's not, is he?”

“I very much doubt it.”

She went down the stairs. “Give me that candle, Jimmy. Has Stevie got one too? You'll burn the place down.” She reached for the candle and saw, on the wall next to her, a row of old-fashioned brass-plated light-switches. Without thinking, just as a sort of automatic response, she flicked one on and the light on the ceiling above her turned on.

“Wow! Still working after all these years. Bloody army didn't even cut the power off!”

She flicked another switch, and another and another, and a row of lights along the corridor along the center of the shelter, all the way to the far end.

“Amazing! That's better, Mumma. Now we can see.” Jimmy was delighted. “Isn't it great? Did pirates dig all of this?”

“No, Honey, it was the army. They built it a long time ago for people to hide in.”

“There's no people, but there's lots of rooms. Can we hide in here? We could, couldn't we?”

“Well, I don't know. Let's have a look around.”

The long corridor was about 8 feet wide, about the same as the hallway in a house. There were big, strong-looking columns on either side with wooden walls and doorways in between. On the left side was a row of small cubicles, like bedrooms in a hotel. On the right there were several much bigger rooms – small halls almost.

The lights were all bare bulbs hanging on wires from the ceilings. The air was surprisingly fresh – all those ventilators dotted around up-top were still working then. And, it was warm, even warmer that the cottage was with the fire going.

When she'd thought about this place, which wasn't often, Julie had always imagined a dark and dismal cavern full of rats and water. This was nothing like that. As Jimmy kept saying, it was great – like an empty school, or government buildings, but with no windows and buried underground.

They really did need more space in their little house and here was all of this! Everyone could have a room each and there'd still be more to spare. Her head spun with the possibilities of what she could do with this place.

The cream and green paintwork looked fresh, probably because there was no sunlight to fade it, but it would still have to go, it looked too institutional. Some nice warm colours on the walls, rugs on the concrete floors, decent furniture and better lights and this place would make a wonderful home. It was really warm too. There was no heating, was there? Maybe it didn't need any with all of the insulation of the ground around it.

They found Stevie, running around like a mad thing on the wooden bench seats in one of the big rooms and they all went back up to the house. She needed to check on the girls and she sent Jimmy to go and get his father – right now!

The Martin family's subterranean rooms were a five minute sensation in the town, but were soon forgotten about. It was no big deal, instead of having an attic, they had a basement, a huge basement.

The boys lost their sandpit and their little bedroom too, but they didn't mind, they gained better rooms and more space to play in. Noel and John knocked out the backwall of the boys' old room and extended it out over top of the stairwell so that they could go downstairs without going outside.

The family still used the kitchen/living-room up top, but they all slept, and eventually lived, down below. There was miles of room for the kids to play and grow in and Julie spent years happily altering, decorating and improving and making a fabulous home underground. All that was lacking was windows but they didn't need them anyway.

The kids grew up there. It was a bit different but they didn't think a lot about it, it was just their home. It was warm and roomy, it had stairs which most homes didn't, and it was comfortable. It'd be even more comfortable if their mother would stop moving walls and things around.

The girls were first to leave home. They moved to Christchurch and boarded with a family there doing some waitressing at night to support themselves. Melanie was training to be a nurse and Melissa, the brains of the family, was going to be a teacher.

Stevie was next to go, he joined the army, it was all he'd ever wanted to do – 'Join the army, travel the world, meet people and shoot them'.

Jimmy was going nowhere, he stayed at home, worked for his Uncle Adam and planned on buying him out when he retired. It didn't work out that way, instead he took over the garage business when his father took sick and retired early. He died soon after.

Julie went home to live with her own mother and look after her in her dotage. She didn't want to leave her own home, but had to. There was no way that her mother was going to live in a cave at her time of life.

Jimmy lived at home alone, but not for long, he married early. He was just 18 and his girlfriend, Catherine, was still at school when she became pregnant. An urgent wedding was arranged and the young couple lived in Jimmy's childhood home, but not for long. Catherine was not happy there, she hated the place.

Right from the beginning she spent all of her time up in the old cottage and only went downstairs when she absolutely had to, mostly to sleep. It was comfortable and nice enough, she just didn't like it.

Catherine had a baby boy. Jimmy named him Ronald, she didn't care what it was called. After just a few weeks, she was pregnant again. Jimmy was delighted and he had visions of filling their home up with a big family. Catherine did not; she had no intentions of sitting there like a bloody rabbit in its warren, popping out babies for the rest of her life. Bugger that!

What sort of man takes up with a woman when she is already married and pregnant? Not the best sort, obviously, but some do. Catherine had a boyfriend even before Reggie was born, and soon after she left Reggie in his cot and Ronnie in his play-pen and she walked out on them, never to return.

Jimmy came home from work and found his boys alone, dirty, wet, hungry and crying. He'd never forgive her for doing that to them. The old lady was moved into the geriatric home, it was time that she was there anyway, and Jimmy's mother moved back home to help him raise her grandsons.

Gimme Shelter

3 September 1939, German forces invaded Poland. At 11.30am Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, declared war. A few hours later, 9.30pm, Michael Joseph Savage, Prime Minister of New Zealand, addressed his nation and declared war on Nazi Germany.

“It is with gratitude for the past, and with confidence in the future, that we range ourselves without fear beside Britain, where she goes, we go! Where she stands, we stand!”

Although, at that time, there was no direct threat to New Zealand, the 'Home Country' was at war, so New Zealand was too. The people embraced the cause and followed their leaders enthusiastically. In 1939 the regular army numbered 593 men but there were immediate queues at every recruiting office in the country and the 2nd NZ Expeditionary Force was in Egypt by February 1940.

The Maori people were exempt from military service but they demanded to be allowed to participate and the Maori Battalion was formed in October 1939.

By the end of the six year long war 194,000 men and 10,000 women served in the military forces – almost 15% of the total population. In addition, 100,000 served in the Home Guard, mostly in New Zealand but also in the Pacific Islands.

When Japan entered the war, in December 1941, there was, for the first time, an actual chance that New Zealand might be invaded. The shooting war was very far away but now the Home Front had something concrete to worry about and thousands of tons of concrete were poured into coastal defences, gun emplacements, pill-boxes and air-raid shelters, especially around the entrances to the ports and harbours.

In Westpoint, a 5 inch gun was installed at the rivermouth, on the South Tiphead, and a large, concrete, underground shelter built between the back of the main street and the railway yards and wharves. This central facility was big enough to shelter all of the workers and townspeople who might be in the area..

As it turned out, it was never needed. The only invasion that New Zealand suffered during the war years was the friendly invasion of the American forces, and that was mostly in the cities. They came for rest and recreation, their presence helped reassure a nervous population whose young men were all gone to war, and they changed the local culture forever.

After the war ended in 1945 Westpoint's shelter lay out of sight and forgotten for several years. It was not needed, not wanted and, as a testimony of war-time hysteria, a bit of an embarrassment really. Eventually, the down-sized Defence Department off-loaded ownership on to the local Council.

The Borough Council had no use for it and they didn't want it either, so they were delighted to sell it, dirt-cheap, to a local man who made an offer for it. Stephen Martin didn't really want the shelter either, what he wanted was the big empty area above it and the valuable location that it lay in.

Stephen was a young man, full of ambition and in a hurry. He'd recently finished his apprenticeship and qualified as a motor-mechanic. Throughout the 4 year term of his apprenticeship he'd always hoped to take over the business from his boss, Barry Jones.

It was a reasonable dream, Barry was getting old and he was forever talking about retiring. However, it wasn't going to happen. He was retiring but the business would never be Stephen's. Barry had a son, (who knew?), and he was going to take it over.

The son, who Stephen had never heard of before, arrived one day and announced his own plans. He was moving home at the end of the year, the old man was handing the business over to him and he was going to run it. There would be other changes too, there'd be no room there for Stephen, he'd have to find another job.

Stephen pretty quickly decided that he wouldn't want to stay there anyway, he didn't like the guy. Barry was a nice old guy, his son was a prick.There were two other mechanics' businesses in town; he inquired about work at both places but they had no vacancies, not for him anyway. They were both quite rude about it and both said that they wouldn't want anyone who'd been trained by Barry Jones.

Thinking back later, Stephen always said that they did him a favour, but at the time he was pissed off at them. Anyway, that was when he decided to go into business for himself.

There was room in the town for another garage, especially if he concentrated on the fishing fleet and he had a bit of money coming his way. Retirement was looming for their parents and neither he nor any of his siblings wanted to take over the family farm, so it was on the market.

His father readily agreed that Stephen could take his share of the inheritance early, there was no point in waiting for the parents to die when he needed the money now. He really needed it too, money that is. Not only did he need to make a job for himself, he had to get a home together as well – his girlfriend was pregnant.

They hadn't planned on that but these things happen and it was done now. He was going to be a father so he needed to get ready for that.

He wandered around the town looking for a suitable place to work out of. Unfortunately, businesses generally were booming so there weren't many empty places about. Then he found one, a big old shed down the back-street near the wharves. It was empty and, apparently, unused, it was all boarded up. The Borough Council would know who owned it, so he went in there to ask.

The Town Clerk, Tom Moore, was a mate of his father's and he'd known him for years.

“In Adderson Street? Sure I know who owns it, we do. The Council that is. It was used during the war by the Defence Department and they dumped it on us when they wanted to be rid of it.”

“It was built in the war? It looks a lot older than that.”

“It does, it's meant to. It was built with second-hand materials and was supposed to look old.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Camouflague, I guess. That was in the days when they were scared we might be invaded or bombed. It's actually over the top of one of the main entrances to the air-raid shelter.”

“An air-raid shelter? I didn't know there was one there.”

“Well, now you do, Young Stephen. Not many people do know actually, it's forgotten about already. There's a huge underground shelter under that whole area, most of the block in fact. Hundreds of tons of reinforced concrete went down there and now no-one wants it.”

“I don't want it either, but I'd be keen on buying the shed.”

“Would you now? Maybe we can do a deal, you and I.”

It wasn't what he'd planned, but he finished up buying the shed, the shelter and the whole big empty area. It was cheap.

His older brother, Adam, came up with the next bright idea. He had a small carrying business, well he had a truck for hire and worked for himself. He'd been moving a few houses around recently. It was a big job but not too bad if you knew what you were doing, and he did.

“Tell you what, Little Brother, you'll need somewhere to live with your new bride. . .”

“I know that, but money's tight. I thought that we'd live in one of the old worker's cottages on the farm for a start.”

“That's just what I was thinking, but you couldn't stay there long – the place is for sale.”

“Yeah, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I've got a workshop now, but I couldn't see Julie living in that, which is a shame in a way, it'd be great to live close to work.”

“It would, so why don't we pick the cottage up and move it into town? You've got all that empty space sitting there doing nothing. Julie would be happier living in town too, just a few minutes walk from the shops and her mother's place and everything.”

“That'd be brilliant, but I couldn't even afford to do that – I'm stony broke.”

“It won't cost you anything. Dad'll give you the cottage, he doesn't want it anyway. I'll move it in for you and get Noel and John to help set it up on foundations and put the power and water on. That can be our wedding present to you two. Plus . . “

“Plus?”

“Yeah, plus, I'm going to need somewhere to keep my trucks. If you'll let me use some of your empty space, I'll fence it off, slap-up a shed and operate my business next to yours. I will be better off in town too. That's a prime site you've got there. I'll pay for everything but you have to help with the labour. Give me the first year's rent for free and, after that, I'll pay you something to help with the rates and everything. What do you say?”

“I say, don't tell Noel and John, but you're the best brother! Thanks, Adam, we'll do it!.”

Their brothers, Noel and John, were builders and they wanted to move into town as well. The Old Man's selling up was upsetting everyone's lifestyle. They were self-employed as well. This was a family that liked being their own bosses. They agreed that they'd help get Stephen and Adam set-up, as long as they could have a section to put their own shed and yard on as well. Stephen was delighted.

“Thanks, Brothers. We'll all work out of there. People will be calling it 'Martinville'.”

“Yeah, but you and Julie will be the only ones living on-site. You can be the night-watchman in your spare time.”

“Not a problem!”

It all happened really fast. By the time Stephen and Julie returned from their 4 day honeymoon, the cottage was ready and waiting for them to move into and his brothers' sheds had all been built, mostly from second-hand materials.

There was still a lot of unused space. It was an excellent area to build on, commercially rated and centrally located in the town's industrial area and flat and solid ground. There was just a couple of feet of sandy soil spread over the concrete underground shelter.

Julie loved their little cottage. It was small, just a central kitchen/living-room and a tiny bedroom at each end. It was old and rough, but it was all theirs and, although she was heavily pregnant, she worked hard to make it into a home.