Not just tough engines either!!!

[firedrake1942]

MO and MM subjected to cruel and unusual punishments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV4GyENUDfI

[panky]

Whoops. Bit of a blooper with the Riley number plate

[firedrake1942]

Indeed.

This one has many shots of Minors in and around Central London. The Poland Street Car Park was still there when I lived in Soho in the mid 1980's. Fascinating to see just how long the bomb sites were there so long after WW2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdHv01IgcWs

[firedrake1942]

London in 1958 from a Minor....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI907E6a75I

[firedrake1942]

London Parking..... And you think it is bad today ! Lots of early Minors to see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUrMYhzZgvw

[firedrake1942]

Rare colour film from the early Minor period

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHhuBZEZESU

[Blaketon]

Fascinating to see just how long the bomb sites were there so long after WW2.

Swansea took a long time to rid itself of the ruins. My mother lived near Ebbw Vale during WW2 and often the raids would pass overhead; if the sound headed west, it was Swansea but if it went south, it would be Bristol and sometimes the sky would glow red (This was more a recollection of my grandfather). There was always the worry that Ebbw Vale steelworks would be hit but in those days inland targets were harder to locate at night. There was a funny story of how one night, my mother and my late aunt were rushed downstairs and put to stand near the chimney (Anderson shelters weren't common in these parts). My aunt was several years older than my mother and was not too happy about being disturbed and said "Bugger Hitler, I'm tired" (Strong language for a youngster then). It was also fortunate that the Luftwafe was designed as a tactical force (Lacking heavy bombers), rather than a strategic one, in which case the damage could have been a lot worse.

My father spent WW2 in Southall and can remember fires being damped down in central London, the morning after a raid. From May 1941, the raids were scaled back (Due to Barborossa) and it became quieter until the advent of the V1 (My father saw one in flight) and V2s.

[philthehill]

I used to go the Sheffield in the 1950s to see my grandmother and there were plenty of bomb sites back then even down and around the Moor not withstanding the industrial area.
Sheffield did suffer and was Blitzed greatly.
My grandmothers housed (off Abbydale Road) was hit with an incendiary bomb which came through the roof setting fire to the attic area.
The one thing I that I had (and treasured for may years) from her house was a child's miniature rocking chair (now passed to my granddaughter) and the seat area is pock marked with what looks like cigarette burns but is in fact burns from the phosphorus of the incendiary bomb.
The remains of the Anderson shelter were still in the yard back then.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheffield_Blitz

The lathe I have was used by the previous owners father after WW2 to turn up a phosphorous napkin ring and during the turning exercise the phosphorus went up in flames. He was able to make another from the same material but was more careful the second time around.
Phosphorous makes its own oxygen and will burn under water and it does not take much heat to get it alight. Much harder to extinguish.

[SteveClem]

The house next to my grandparent's was damaged by incendiary bombs. They were aiming for Stanton ironworks/shell filling factory.
In the previous war the shell filling factory at Chilwell exploded and killed lots of the 'canary girls '. My grandfather remembered the local folk collecting bits of dead cows from the surrounding area. It was 1918 and times were hard. The factory was up and running again within a week,apparently.