大象传媒

We lived in 34 Minehead Rd, Knowle Park in 1940. We were the Winterson family with 8 children then, 3 boys and 5 girls. Joan, Raymond, John, Pat, Brenda, Evelyn, Alan and Iris. our dad worked on the railway (a reserved occupation) so wasn't very often there during air raids. We had an Anderson shelter in the garden but most of the time during an air raid we hid under the kitchen table. On November 24th 1940, which was Iris' first birthday, we were under the table, dad was at work, and John was visiting our grandparents in Brislington. It was early in the evening, on a Sunday, the neighbours had gone to church, the bomb came over our roof and dropped in the garden next door. If the neighbours had been there they would have been in the shelter which was destroyed. All our windows were broken and all our doors blew in, the window stack was blown down. Joan was the only one with minor injuries when a door blew in and it grazed her. Mum was worried because she thought John was on his way home from Brislington, but Gran had kept him there because he was ill, and then because the raid had started. Next morning because there was big crack in the house which couldn't be repaired, so we had to move to Brislington to stay with our grandparents, no.51 Sandy Park Road. While we were there an incendiary came onto the roof and we stayed under the stairs in the cupboard. After a while we were given a house that had been requisitioned in Rugby Road. Rugby Road was a residential area of privately owned houses and people weren't very happy about 8 children from a council house in Knowle moving in. but our Dad was very proud that although we didn't have much, we marched off to school looking pristine in clean white socks and ribbons. In January 1941 the four eldest of the family were evacuated to Cornwall (Joan, Ray, John and Pat). Ray stayed in Gunnislake and Joan, John and Pat were in Calstock, but each in a different family. We went from Temple Meads station and went to St Germans by train, and then by coach to Calstock. Joan thought me calling the woman I lived with Mum, was terrible (I was 8, she was about 13 then). The people I stayed with were called Mr and Mrs Trevethen. Their parents owned a farm and in the spring we were allowed to stay home from school and help with the daffodil harvest. We used to help pack them & take them by pony & trap to the nearest railway station. I stayed there for two years but the others came home, Joan came home first to go to work at 14. Ray came home because he was ill, and John was with the vicar, who used to put cigarettes on the mantelpiece in the boys bedroom to see if they would smoke them. The people I stayed with were very religious and I used to wear a straw bonnet and white lace gloves to go to church. I brought back a doll with a china head, which had to go to the dolls hospital because it was broken. At the end of my time there, Joan came down to see me at Christmas with a case, to bring me home. At first I didn't want to go because I was happy in Cornwall, but then I decided to go back at the last minute. Because of the number of children we had our own brick shelter in the garden with metal bunks for the children to sleep on, and a shelf to put candles. we still remember the smell of red safety matches and the candles. We had an old sofa and the coats and shoes were laid out for us to pick up and run into the garden in an air raid. Usually we'd stay there all night if we were asleep already. There was also a big brick shelter for the whole road in the road outside our house. Another brother, Leslie Ernest was born while I was evacuated, I remember my mother writing to me to tell me. On VE Day arrangements were made for a party, the communal shelter in the road was cleaned out in case the weather was bad, but in the event we were able to have it in the street. There was a bonfire in the middle of the street that melted the tarmac. The youngest brother, Bob, was born not long after in time for the welfare state.

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