Dramatic images of a Bridgnorth family at war

A family at war, a town at war, and a host of fascinating photographs capturing the spirit of those times...

The Roden family at war at Christmas 1940 – mum and dad Daisy and Walter, and children Roger and Sylvia.

At the height of the Blitz, the Roden family of Bridgnorth went to bed with steel helmets at the ready. Their living room ceiling was braced with stout oak beams to try to prevent a collapse in case of a bomb hit.

Young Sylvia was already well practised in wearing her gas mask. And dad Walter, a local grocer, was doing his bit for the war effort as a Special Constable.

And we owe a debt to Walter, a keen photographer, for a remarkable legacy in the form of evocative images which capture the spirit and drama of those dark days.

Sylvia at the entrance to an air raid shelter. Can anybody pinpoint the location?

The danger was very real. One picture shows a bomb site in Bridgnorth – in August 1940 a German raider unloaded a string of bombs over the town and two people were killed.

Others show family members on the edge of a massive bomb crater near Broseley.

We can bring you these photos thanks to Walter's daughter, who is now Mrs Sylvia Stubbs, living in Ellesmere – she celebrated her 91st birthday on October 2 – and also her son Jonathan, who is from Shrewsbury.

This huge bomb crater was at Rowton Farm, near Broseley, in November 1940. Daisy, Roger, and Sylvia were among those who peered from the edge.

With their help, and also that of Jackie Gurden, of Shrewsbury, the middle daughter of the late Geoff Parfitt, a former curator of Shropshire Regimental Museum, we can piece together the background story to the photos.

A little while ago we published wartime scenes featuring crashed German bombers in Shropshire during the Blitz, and a Messerschmitt 109 fighter on display in the car park of Bridgnorth's Majestic cinema.

These had been shared with us by Shrewsbury aviation historian and photographer Michael Davies. Michael recalled he had copied them at the request of Mr Parfitt in the mid-1990s, but did not know where they had come from originally.

It starts here. Sylvia and Roger view the grim tidings on September 3, 1939.

It turns out these too were part of Walter's collection and the little boy prominently featured in many of the images was his son, Roger Roden.

Geoff Parfitt was a long-time friend of Sylvia and her husband Peter and was at the time liaising with Sylvia for a supplement showcasing her dad's wartime photos. This was published in the Bridgnorth Journal in December 1995.

Alas, much of Walter's collection has mysteriously disappeared relatively recently.

Stocking at the end of the bed, along with steel helmets... Sylvia and mum Daisy at Christmas 1940.

"I'm afraid the bulk of his work has gone the way of all flesh now," said Jonathan, who recalls there being five or six other albums, all full, at his mother's home.

"It's a crying shame. I've been through the house and I can't find them. We just don't know what's happened to them."

The Rodens were dad Walter, mum Daisy – "real" name Ruth Caroline Roden, nee Jones – and children Sylvia, who was born in 1927, and Roger, born in 1933, who both attended Bridgnorth Grammar School.

Stout oak beams were used to support the ceiling to prevent collapse if the Roden's Bridgnorth home was bombed. It's Christmas 1940, with Sylvia and Roger and, right, Lindsay Beresford, an evacuee who was the daughter of a Derby headmistress.

Their grocer's shop was at 72 High Street in Bridgnorth, and the family lived at the back of the shop.

"My father bought us all very posh gas masks which we never wore in action, but had to take to school," recalled Sylvia.

"For a couple of years we had to sleep every night on the sitting room floor. We had air raid warnings night after night in Bridgnorth, and my father would be on patrol with newsagent Bob Foxall and butcher Tom Wormington.

Sylvia, right, working in Roden's grocer's shop in Bridgnorth High Street in April 1945. Left is Doreen Gower (later Mrs Ainsworth) and middle is Freda Bache (later Mrs Taylor).

"They used to get very tired and it was decided that they would take alternate nights on duty. On the first night of the new pattern my father stayed in bed and Bob Foxall was on duty – it was the first time for nights that my father had slept in his own bed.

"We were woken by one hell of a noise. My mother dashed up the stairs and said 'they have come' and my father came downstairs with his trousers on back to front.

"I can remember a stirrup pump, sand and buckets of water in the hall at the time.

Special Constable Walter Roden, No. 266, with daughter Sylvia in June 1942.

"As my father came downstairs Bob Foxall shot up the side entry of the shop telling us to come to the air raid shelter which was under the Palace Ballroom (later Woolworths) and we were shepherded across the road."

A stick of bombs had fallen across the town, the largest of which landed on Squirrel corner.

"Every time there was an air raid warning afterwards over the next few weeks we used to go to the shelter over the road."

Sylvia Stubbs, who has recently turned 91, at a Bridgnorth Grammar School reunion

Sylvia's father died in 1989, and her younger brother Roger, who features in so many of the pictures, died in 2009.

Jonathan said: "He moved to south Shropshire, around Cleobury Mortimer, and then to North Wales, and since his death Roger's wife has gone back to Cleobury Mortimer.

"He worked in the steel trade, as a seller, I think."