Brought up in a Nissen hut
During the Second World War, 329 industrial hostels were built throughout Britain to house over 120,000 workers involved in the war effort.
I know a little about one of them, Keresley Industrial Hostel, built on the northern outskirts of Coventry. After the war, what remained of it became part of Copthorne Secondary Modern, my school. The old hostel provided extra classroom space, particularly for metalwork, woodwork and art.
I used to wonder what those rooms had been used for during the war. Long after leaving the school, I discovered that the hostel was specifically built to accommodate Bevin Boys – among them David Day, who in 1993 published an account of his time there, The Bevin Boy.
My classrooms had been a ‘welfare block’ for David Day: ‘The walls were painted in bright colours and the layout resembled that of a seaside holiday camp. Among its amenities were a shop, a cinema, a games room, a library, a vast dining hall and a well-upholstered lounge.’ A lot more than I ever imagined.
The hostel didn’t just provide my school with classrooms. It also provided me with a home.
The Bevin Boys slept in neighbouring Nissen huts – 12 to a hut. After the war, as they went home, the Nissen huts became empty. When people in war-ravaged Coventry learnt of this, they began moving in. This was in 1946 – the year my parents got married and were in need of a home themselves. My father went to investigate.
He dimly remembered the occupation being organised by two city councillors. He was told that, if he wanted a hut, he had to place an item of furniture inside the one he wanted, to claim it. On learning this, he went straight away to his parents’ home, half a mile away, and asked his mother for the loan of a chair so he could claim a hut.
My grandmother told him, ‘Take two – get one for Gladys!’ And that’s exactly what he did.
I was born in the January following my parents’ moving in. The Nissen hut was therefore my very first home. But by the time I attended the school, it had gone – along with all the others.
By Paul Buttle, Keswick, Cumbria, who receives £50
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