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.