I Can Hear an Air Raid Siren
I’m sat here wrapping things up on the net, trying to get everything sorted before 9.30am but with half a mind on thinking about something to blog about.
Then as if from nowhere inspiration strikes, or at least I hope it does, if this post ends suddenly you’ll know what’s happened !
The disturbance came in the form of a siren, or alarm if you will, but not some high tech beep beep or screeching noise but a genuine World War II air raid siren - I kid you not !
It must mean something - is the Blitz about to restart on La Cote de Wybers Wood ?
Are we at war ? Has a nuclear bomb gone off ? [anyone remember protect and survive ??]
I can’t help feeling that I should know what it’s for and take some appropriate action. I’m reminded of the Lincolnshire Floods when people were stood around in Louth wondering what the noise was only to find out the next day it was a ‘flood alarm’ which nobody knew anything about
I suppose it could be warning me of all sorts such are the high levels of excitement enjoyed by residents of this Great Shire.
Perhaps I’m being warned of UFOs or even a wolf attack after they were re introduced to the wilds of the Freshney Park Nature Reserve which is behind my hut !
It could, it suddenly occurs to me, be a warning of a totally different man-eater of course - a Predatory Female alert - Aye Caramba !
I’d better take cover 
Still being a man of action I’m used to danger and I’m sure whatever the risk is it will show itself before the day is out !
Keep Your Heads Down !
Rod
Little Brother said,
January 13, 2009 @ 2:11 pm
Rod,
Had you been spotted opening your wallet?
LB
Witches of Eastwick said,
January 13, 2009 @ 3:09 pm
Rod,
For God’s sake get outside smartish…… if there’s even the slightest hint of a suitable woman then you owe it to all of us to make yourself available regardless of cost or interrupted wrapping
Not wishing to pour cold water on your aspirations, but a siren sounding around our locality usually means rising levels in the local river….. still it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good, there could well be a woman stranded in Wybers harbour with a dodgy bow thruster
WoE
Rod said,
January 13, 2009 @ 3:19 pm
LB
I don’t think it was anything that portentous !
Russian invasion possibly - opening of the wallet unlikely
Rod
Rod said,
January 13, 2009 @ 3:23 pm
WoE
I generally take alarms to be a warning of impending danger so the possibility of a carnivorous female stalking the lanes of Wybers Wood is the reason for the hullabaloo then surely it’s a warning to be on guard rather than an alert of potentail good tidings !!!
Rod
Witches of Eastwick said,
January 13, 2009 @ 5:21 pm
Rod,
You’re far too slow, she’ll be snapped up by an unsuspecting opportunist male by now, probably a fisherman with a small catch who now thinks it’s Christmas
Would it be better to reverse our plan and have you electronically chipped with inbuilt alarm for the benefit of women passing within radar scope? Stop twitching, it just might work 
WoE
Rod said,
January 13, 2009 @ 6:28 pm
WoE
I wish that fisherman well with his catch, hope he doesn’t wish he’d thrown it overboard instead of keeping it one day
As to “passing women” I’d take a leaf out of the police handbook
“Keep moving - nothing to see here”
Rod
juli said,
January 13, 2009 @ 9:38 pm
I also live near the coast (whitley bay) and round here an alarm like that is the foghorn! Any chance it could have been vaguely foggy out to sea?
Rod said,
January 14, 2009 @ 8:46 am
Hi Juli
(i.e. no longer much of a port)
definately not foggy, on afoggy night you could always hear the ships here but come to think of it that no longer happens !
Must be a sign of the times
I suppose it could be an alarm designed to jolt me back into reality
Cheers
Rod
Ben said,
February 10, 2009 @ 1:56 pm
“I’m reminded of the Lincolnshire Floods when people were stood around in Louth wondering what the noise was about”
Must have been tourists then. Most residents of Louth know about the air raid/flood warning; they test it every week!
Rod said,
February 10, 2009 @ 3:24 pm
Hi Ben
thanks for the comment, much appreciated and welcome to the site.
There were people on the local news saying they didn’t know what it was, likewise I personally know of people who live there and they didn’t know.
All the best
Rod
Andy said,
January 27, 2010 @ 12:37 pm
I too live in Whitley Bay and heard the WW2 siren going off at around 11am on Sunday morning (though Sunday gone, so would have been the 24 Jan) . I’ve actually just Googled “air raid siren Whitley Bay” just to see if there was any chatter about it! Most perturbing…
I was just going into Sainsbury’s and had to make the decision whether to rush home and hug my family, or continuing shopping for wine and broccoli. I chose a common sense “must be a mistake approach” and the latter and found the soothing normality of bored shoppers just the tonic for lingering fears about nuclear fallout. And if the bomb did drop, at least I was close to the spirits…
It’s not the first time I’ve heard it. It also sounded during an A-level exam at Whitley High in 1988, but this time it did go on for longer! I don’t know where its located though…
Amiguru said,
January 27, 2010 @ 6:53 pm
Rod,
Not only was I in the floods of 1953 when we lived in the village of Huttoft, near Sutton-on-Sea, but I now live on the coast of Essex in a locality where 38 people lost their livesin the same floods. Now get this - the school where I work has one of these original WWI sirens in the school grounds and it too is periodically tested. Warnings of the impending tests are publicised in local newspaper and on the local radio.
Furthermore I am old enough to have been around during the war and as soon as the siren starts my hair stands on end, such was the impression on me as a young child.
They invariable are timed for 11am and the one at our school is about 30 feet from the ICT suite where I am based! I can tell you you don’t want to be outside and close to this thing when it goes off
Regards,
le
N
Amiguru said,
January 27, 2010 @ 6:55 pm
Ooops,
le
For WWI read WWII…….I’m not that old
N
Rod said,
January 27, 2010 @ 7:06 pm
Neville,
do all the locals know what the siren is I wonder ?
In Louth when the flood warning was sounded the other year people were all wondering what the noise was !
Alarmingly Yours
Rod
Amiguru said,
January 27, 2010 @ 7:28 pm
Rod,
Generally they do, except some of the newcomers!
I have just e-mailed you yet another historic Grimsby map.
Regards,
le
N
chris keyworth said,
January 27, 2010 @ 7:28 pm
Ive been on both sides here.. but nowadays i have to put up with them twice a week and reframe from putting my NBC kit on , the refinery next to immingham test there fire sirens regular but we all know what they mean round here, but we also have somthing a bit different inbetween habrough and killingholme there is a Directional low frequency siren which is tested twice a year the next one is on April 17th it is the community evacuation siren if you can hear this and it goes off on any day other than the test days then you are in danger, it was installed after the refinery went boom the last time. somtimes the fire siren goes off every day this sounds like an air raid siren and is very loud but the evacuation siren is extremly loud and can be heard where i live aprox 4 miles away any unsuspecting visitor would be scared out of there witts..
regards
chris
Rod said,
January 27, 2010 @ 7:57 pm
Chris,
I don’t like the sound of “the community evacuation siren”
Without being glib - what if a disatster happens on the siren test day ?
Best
Rod
chris keyworth said,
January 27, 2010 @ 8:03 pm
well i guess were toast….
the debate is how much notice will we get of an explosion they have a tendancy to just happen my guess is if you hear it its to late to do anything about anyway…
regards chris
Andrew said,
February 8, 2010 @ 12:49 am
this is a subject i’v always been rather sensitive aout…. I was traumatized as a child because in 1 week we were taght about the war and the hiroshima bombing at school then went home and found an old vinyl of frankie goes to hollywood’s “two tribes”, then to the following day on the way to school hearing the dull sound of an old air raid siren…. this affected me pretty badly and to this day if i hear anything that sounds like an air raid siren it gives me almost paralyzing type fear….. although this siren i heard on the way to school happened every monday at 10am and it was faint, so i put it down to a test, “just incase”. it’s still a very ominous sound and one to be feared in my book. if anyone can give me any info on tests of these community evacuation alarms or “doomsday whistle’s” it would be appreciated. thanks