The Blitz and Botty Jokes

What with the Jubilee, Operation Dog Snot removal, the arrival of Chris' family and the occasional Intensive Care Shift, I am way, way behind with my chosen blog reading and commenting.
I will endeavour to catch up this evening when the cottage goes quiet and still after the final dog walk of the day and after every soaked animal has been locked up safely for the night.
Last night Chris' brother, sister in law and nephew arrived for dinner.
The dogs braced themselves for the hug- fest that was Leo, and after a somewhat convoluted bedding in introduction boy and dogs ended up all together on the kitchen sofa , where Leo read them all passages from his Scooby-doo annual.




My experience with children is , as you would expect,  rather limited. What I have learnt is that kids will find interest, enjoyment and humour in their own things....things that are often miles away from anything an adult could suggest and offer them........
Mind you toilet humour is always a good starting point when kids need their imaginations pricked....they love bottom jokes!


As a child our Liverpudlian grandparents would tell us amazing stories about the war. The May Blitz in 1941 caused over 2,800 casualties and flattened much of the city  .. but all we children wanted to hear is the story where my gran was "blown off the loo" in the School Shelter during the December Blitz
We were told of the dreadful loss of life in the Durning Road tragedy, where an Edge Hill public shelter suffered a direct hit and 166 people died, but again all we wanted to hear was how My Uncle Jim, who was then around ten years old was rushed to a shelter in a pair of ladies high heel shoes and a chenille curtain when the munitions train exploded!


The wreckage of the Louisa Street Shelter


The story of how my great grandfather died was a very different and sobering story for we children to listen to, for he was killed in the Louisa Street bombing of October 1940., a bombing raid that very nearly killed my grandmother, mother and uncle who were racing towards the shelter that suffered a direct hit at the time.
My grandmother recalled stopping in the road, as the bombs were falling, not knowing whether to run to the Louisa street shelter , where her in laws were taking refuge, or to take the chance to run to the local school which had a reinforced room in which they could hide.
They ran to the school, at the same time as eight people including her father in law, James Samuel Fry was killed in the Louisa Street bombing, a bombing that precipitated the family's flight out of the Liverpool to Wales.
This story always received the goggle-eyed respect and solemnity from her grandchildren that it deserved, and it proved to be a valuable parable and first exploration into the subjects of death for children who had previously had no experience of it...


Having said all that....... the story of how Gran got blasted across the floor with her bloomers around her ankles, still remains a firm favourite of mine  even at 50!
Who said it is only kids that love a good botty joke.

29 comments:

  1. Botty jokes in combination with WW2 stories - you know how to please me.

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  2. That photo of that lovely little lad reading the dogs a story is absolutely wonderful John.

    Do agree about the bottom jokes - I think every child (sorry to be sexist, but particularly boys) goes through a lavatory/bottom phase - all very healthy I would say (as long as they grow out of it.)

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  3. Do the dogs have a preference when it comes to stories?

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  4. You're right about kids!! So do you know why the loo roll, rolled down the hill? Because it wanted to get to the bottom!

    Where does a hippo get his shot? In his hippobottomas!

    Okay, okay, I'll stop, I just thought I'd give you some new material for Leo!

    Seriously, it is quite a story, John. Thank you for sharing that and giving me a grin at the very start of my day, I hope I gave you a little, tiny grin too! :-D

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  5. I bought my great nephews (goodness how that ages me) a Plop-up Book, which showed the differences in various farm yard animal poohs. Shortly afterwards the boys were taken to a farm open day where they humilated their parents by showing no interest in the animals and HEAPS of interest in animal pooh.

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  6. Never mind the kids enjoying the "bottom" jokes, I have a couple of "big" boys here who enjoy them as well.... those and anything to do with passing gas off the bottom, and/or setting them to flames. LOL Quite the education of colourful stories you had been told as a young lad, John ! Ha !

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  7. Why is that a combination of death and toilets always guarantees a smirk? I know it does it for me - think Elvis for example.

    Sadly, it is also where my great-great-granddad, Samuel Harrop passed away in 1900.

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  8. Oooh, I wish my grandma had been blown off the loo with her knickers at her ankles. Family reunions would never be boring again.
    And Leo is ADORABLE! What a great kid! Love that he reads Scooby Doo to all the dogs!

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  9. oh my mum is like that, she laughs hysterically at anything to do with bodily functions. Crikey can you imagine her as an IT nurse :-O

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  10. My mother used to have our girls in stitches with tales of tangling the barrage balloon wires as a WAAC - alas we have no war-stories to pass onto the next generation, although I'm sure I could share a bathroom story or two!

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  11. What a rich, family history you have!

    Love the boy and dog pic...

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  12. I sure hope you're sharing all these stories with Leo, if you can tear his attention away from the dogs. What a great way to inculcate an early interest in history, by way of granny's blasted loo!

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  13. My granddad strongly believed that you should live every day like it is your last.

    That is why he spent the final twenty years of his life on a drip in an intensive care unit with a rubber tube up his arse.

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  14. What a horrible cost your family suffered in the war! I have a friend who was a child in England during the war and she still suffers occasional flashbacks to the bombing.

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  15. Ms Sparrow
    My grandmother was scarred for life due to the bombing... any time there was a thunder storm, she would hide in the airing cupboard!
    my mother was a teenager during the war years and was witness to many terrible things, including being trapped in her home when the windows were blown in during a raid... she was also shot at in the streets of Everton, by the rear gunners of enemy aircraft which used the church on Everton hill as a turning point

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  16. My gran and grandad were Liverpudlians also. I loved listening to the stories of lighting the candles in the windows, when it was blackout, and black shades to cover the windows.
    Grandad worked on the docks as a steelworker, the stories he could tell !
    Nice that Chris's brother found comfort on the couch with the dogs, souncds like me when I was younger, always with the animals, not the adults :)
    ~Jo

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  17. Hope you're having a good visit.
    How goes the bunny war?

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  18. My mother and father tended to keep quiet about the war, so me and my sister never heard any memorable personal anecdotes. I don't know why they kept quiet - if it was too painful to talk about, or if they thought it was too horrible for our innocent ears. At any rate, I still know next to nothing about their war experiences.

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  19. Gran being blown off the loo is priceless.
    The war tale that had us kids wide-eyed with awe was my dad telling how he sat on a wall and watched his school burn down. Every child's dream I expect.

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  20. My war stories only involve yellow coloring packets for the margarine and lost ration books, generating little interest. The war horrors I read of made a significant impact on me, however. Thanks for your stories.

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  21. I only have a few recollections that have stuck with me from my childhood school days. One is the day that our 5th grade teacher told us that John F. Kennedy had been shot. The other is from third grade when a new student, named Oscar, quietly left his seat and went for a moment into the coatroom in the back of the class. When he returned, our teacher asked why he'd left his seat. Oscar drawled, "I had to pass gas, ma'am." The class stared at him in awe and admiration. Old Mrs. Lujan, after a moment's shocked pause, reared back her head and burst into laughter. I don't know which surprised me more - that someone would admit to farting or that Mrs. Lujan actually knew how to laugh. Thanks, John, for bringing back that memory!

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  22. My Mum in particular had a lot of stories about the Blitz, as she grew up in Purley during the war. My Dad spent some of the war hidden away back in Ireland, but he lived through some of it in London. My Mum had a of shocking stories, but none quite like yours! :)

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  23. My father tells a wonderful story of how a bomb fell through the roof of their house in Alfreton - thought to have been mistaken for Sheffield by the German bomber planes - and landed on my Auntie Phyllis's leg whilst she was in bed. My grandmother picked it up and chucked it out into the garden !! Luckily it was a dud. Auntie Phyllis had a limp for all of her life.

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  24. Now ain't that the truth about kids! xoxo

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  25. I often wonder if I will be in the shower when the BIG Eartquake comes to Southern California. For years after the largest one I had ever experienced(94) I slept with my purse next to my bed and my shoes at the ready.
    Happy Belated Birthday John!
    Ruth from California (Duh) USA

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  26. I probably had a greater sense of wartime Birmingham than the country I was growing up in as a child. Reading your family's horrific accounts makes me wonder if Mum kept the gory bits from me. The most dramatic thing I remember was that she could see the glow of Coventry burning. But humour of any kind is a great salve for traumatic experience - the lower the better I suspect.
    PS I was mid-motion when the second shocker came a few minutes after the Big Quake on Feb 22 last year. Oh god, I never want to be in that situation again.

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  27. I know some doggies that are in for lots of attention.

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  28. I know my Grandad was killed in action in t'war but all I know about that is something about a bridge??? Certainly puts things in perspective with how we live today... I think my favourite joke which involves rear ends might be TOO rude to print.... perhaps another time!!

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  29. Hi
    Not left a comment on a blog before.
    I follow your blog and enjoy it very much. I too have terriers, hickens a black cat and will be 50 next birthday.
    Yesterday my 10 year old nephew visited and he and Buster hung out doing 'boy stuff' together. IT is very special to watch and, I hope, will be part of his boyhood memories.
    My Mum survived being bombed during the war in Plymouth. Direct hit to the family home. Fortunately they were in the garden shelter and were dug out. She can't stand thunder now. My father-in-law wont have candles in the house as the smell of those reminds him of the war.

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