Special stuff - the Air Raid Shelter

This is a moment that I've been waiting for for all my 39 years on this planet. We had always heard about the legendary bomb shelter that Grandpa had built in the shadow of World War II, when the threat of an invasion by the Japanese Army seemed a very real prospect.

Its been blocked off by tons of .. well...junk until yesterday afternoon, when my brother managed to move all the stuff out and create a clearway.

This is the first time that the air raid shelter has been seen by human eyes in over fifty years, and its a great pleasure to share it with you all....

****One of the reasons I forgot to mention as to why we havent been able to get in - Grandpa made a mistake of some sort with the building and it regularly flooded - in fact so much so that most of the time the shelter was actually full to the roof and even up the stairs - which explains the rusting.
Given we have had such a bad drought in the last few years the water has receded almost totally and now allows for access !

So this is one of the entrances - you cannot even see the other one at the moment as there are about 10 kitchen sinks on top of it (yes thats right, kitchen sinks !)  Look to the entrance at lower left, there is still a shelf there and I had to squeeze thru that - difficult when youre 6ft 6 !

Leading down to the shelter. Note very rusted door on the right hand side. I felt all sorts of feelings going down here, having wanted to do this since I was a kid, thinking about the impact that the war had on people to the extent that they would build bomb shelters etc etc.....

And then here we are - not seen since the late 40's. Clearly made out of some sort of metal given the rust factor going on !  To the left you can see wooden beams where the seats/beds were. Other stuff is junk just chucked down here over the years. It has also flooded on numerous occassions - there is still an inch of water there now and it is quite rank and damp. The hole on the other side is the escape hatch/second entrance. This could hold six to eight easily.....

Actually this could be turned into a very good wine cellar once all the stuff is removed :-) My mum recounts coming down here as a youngster to have snogging sessions with boys - ewwwww ! Thanks mum !  But there is no light source, so imagine sitting there in the dark waiting for the bombs, which never came to Melbourne thankfully....

Looking back up the way I came down....

So there you are, after all this time, its still there in inner Melbourne, and as I have mentioned to a number of people, probably one of the last, if not the last remaining bomb shelter on a private residence in the city....