大象传媒

This story has been submitted on behalf of Roy Hulbert by 大象传媒 Radio Bristol

My story starts in the early years of the 1930's, before the war began and for readers to understand my true feelings of the story that follows, it has proud memories for me and must be disclosed.
My father was a tunnel face cutting machine operator employed as part of a team by the Government Defence Ministry to excavate the tunnels of Coppenacre later to be used for the storage of ammunition, on one fateful day he was making a cut that was to have far reaching consequences. He instructed the rest of the team to move back away from the cutting area while he made a particular cut. he then started to make the cut, at this point the roof of the tunnel collapsed and he became entombed in the cab of the machine and unknown to anyone was lying pinned in the crushed cab critically injured. To the rest of the team and to the managers on site it seemed a completely and utterly devastating situation the feeling being that no one could have survived under the rubble. After the dust had settled an assessment was made and it was agreed to wait until the collapsed area had become stabilized before work began to clear and shore up the roof of the tunnel. After a long period of time the working team found the beck of the cutting machine and began working forward to the cab area in order to recover, as they believed, my father's body. However, they soon found him, but imagine the shock when they found he was in fact still alive, but critically injured.
My father had sustained serious head and facial injuries and had many operations performed, I believed, by a Dr Kindersley and his team. They implanted a metal disc in his head to replace the part of his skull he had lost. In the early years of the 1930's they were unable to perform facial reconstruction, resulting in my father continuing the rest of his life with only half of his forehead complete. With a great deal of loving care by his family and continual drug treatment and the skill of medical care, life moved on for my family, we had had My Dad.
With this situation and the build up to my wartime memories of the Bath blitz I can now continue with my family experiences and, as a seven year old child my memories are spasmodic, some details and reasons were later explained to me of actions taken by my family.

Rules of War: Never stay in the open during an air-raid find the nearest cover. When hearing the whine
of the falling bomb get as near to the ground as possible.

April 25th 1942.
Shortly after going to bed I was woken by my father saying that we must go down to the coal cupboard under the stairs as the air-raid siren had sounded. this was our usual action taken when sirens sounded. On running downstairs I could hear the whine of a bomb falling and thinking what's that funny sound (I had never heard the sound of a falling hear bomb before). I kept running, through the sitting room into the kitchen, followed by my dad. As we rounded the corner I heard a terribly loud bang and with it I remember being thrown to the ground with my dad on top of me. I heard another big crash just above us, this was the crash of our big solid back door being blown from its hinges across the kitchen and crashing against the wall with dad and me under it. We climbed from under it and into the coal cupboard, where we spent the rest of the air-raid frightened by every exploding bomb that came whinning down around around us. I later learned that had my dad not thrown himself on top of me we could both have been injured or even killed. We later learned that this must have been the bomb that scored a direct hit on a house at the bottom of Burlington Street.

April 26th 1942.
Frightened by what had happened the night before my mum had arranged with the landlord of the Portland Arms public house (at the top of Balance Street) that, should another air-raid happen, we could go to his cellar, as others had done. To this he agreed. Shortly after dark the air-raid siren sounded again, my dad again woke me up and took me downstairs but this time we were to go to the cellar at the Portland Arms before the bombs started to fall. I remember very clearly my dad saying "listen very closely my son when I say run you run and don't stop for anything no matter what might happen on the way, you run straight to the Portland Arms and into the cellar, remember don't stop O.K". "Yes dad." He blew out the candle, opened the front door, took me by the hand and shouted, "run!" We ran, out of the door and up the short steep hill. I remember that as I continued to run there was a strange glow in the street. I could hear quite clearly the Vroom Vroom Vroom of the planes overhead. This was not a strange sound anymore as I had heard it the night before. So as I ran and I ran, my young legs began to go faster than my dad's for he had begun to fall behind. I rounded the left hand corner at the top of Lampards Buildings, I stopped suddenly,for in front of me the sky was glowing bright red and orange I shouted "ooh look dad look at the sky!" Again I was being thrown to the ground with my dad on top of me,but this time no big crash or bang just a Putt Putt Putt Putt again over our heads. Dad stood up, picked me up, grabbed my hand and we ran again and made it to the Portland Arms where we all spent the rest of the night

April 27th 1942.
As the raids stopped and daylight came, we came out of the cellar and I began to understand how lucky we had all been, but what I did not know until much later, was how lucky my dad and I had really been. For many weeks after when my family talked about the raids I discovered that my dad and I were shot at by enemy air craft strafing the area, the results of which could be seen by the bullets holes in the side wall of No 27 Lampards Buildings for many years after.
As the family walked back home the street was covered with bricks, wood, broken glass,and all kinds of rubble and every house in the street had a broken window except our house. My dad believed that the reason our house had no broken windows was that when we ran out at the start of the raid he had forgotten to close the front door.
We were met by Mr Porter, who was an air-raid warden for our street, I cannot forget him on that day for his head was covered by a large bandage with a small trickle of blood down his cheek, he told us he had been cut by flying glass. Mr Porter owned the chippy at the bottom of our street, he told us he had found our door open after the raid and kept an eye on it until we returned.
In my Aunt and Uncle's house, they lived at No 55 Lampards Buildings, an incendiary bomb came through the landing window and bounced down the stairs setting fire to the staircase. My Aunt's family decided to stay in the house during the raids, which may have been a good thing in some ways as my Uncle along with neighbours managed to get the bomb out of the house and put the fire out with sand, I still have the tailpiece of the bomb as a souvenir.
Sadly 19 months later my Aunt and Uncle were to loose their son, Kenneth Watts aged 19, on 15th December 1943 in the Battle of Sangro River Crossing, Italy. This was another blow to my dad as Ken was his favourite nephew.That was the first time I had seen my dad cry.

After effects of the raids.
I cannot forget the days that followed, not only the raids, but also to the end of the war. As the days moved on and fear of more raid began to pass, my parents allowed me to go out, but not too far from home. I saw many changes, the bottom two houses on both sides of Burlington Street were no longer there, just piles of bricks, but what was there was a terrible smell that got stronger each day. I was later to be told it was the smell of death. There were open spaces at the bottom of Harley Street and Northampton Street, across Julian Road, St Andrews church was now only a shell. I now began to explore further from home. There was a big flat area at the back of the Circus and Circus Mews was just rubble, The Regina Hotel was only a shell with half of it blown away. The Assembly Rooms was just a burnt out shell.
All these areas will now play a large part of my growing up. For whatever reason, I could not go to Christchurch School, I had to go to St Mary's Roman Catholic School, this was good for me because each Wednesday afternoon we had off because the rest of the Catholic children went, I think, to Holy Communion. My friends and I could find other more exciting things to do. Tarzan was all the rage at that time and as a lot of bomb damage was being repaired following the raids, one of our favourite games was swinging on the hoist ropes used by the builders. One such site was at the bottom of Gloucester Street, my pal and I were playing Tarzan, one friend that we always called Davis was swinging when all the bricks stacked above began to fall, we called "lookout", but it was too late, he was hit by all the bricks and was rushed to hospital. The next morning at school assembly the head teacher Miss Davies told us that Davis had died and all the children in assembly had to promise never to play that sort of game again.
As children in the war years we lived with danger but could never see it. Playing on the bomb sites was a huge pastime. Another game was seeing how high we could climb up the steel ladder on the side of St Andrews Church, some lads climbed to the top, but not me I could only get half way up. I later found out I suffered from vertigo.This bit of entertainment soon stopped, for they took the top of the steel ladder away. As a result of the air-raids two safes were lost in the ruins at the bottom of Northampton Street. As a form of dig for victory, volunteers were asked for help to dig the rubble away and a reward of 拢5 was to be given to the finders of any of the safes. A friend and I found one and received 拢2.10s each. That was a lot of money then, my mum was so pleased because my dad, being unable to work, only received a small amount of compensation.
Unknown to a lot of people, tunnels were in the ruins of Circus Mews and at that time we played in gangs. We found and entrance to one of there tunnels, we were all too scared to walk to the end at first, but we got braver each day and at last got to the end.At the end was a small window and we could see into the back of the houses in the Circus, we all agreed to make this our gang hut as no other gangs would be brave enough to go in there.
When I talk about being scared, friends and I would never play in the ruins of the Regina Hotel, there were stories being spread that the ruins were haunted by the guests that were killed by the direct hit of the bomb and the fire followed. The same rumour was of a haunting in the ruins of the Assembly Rooms, but in this case it was haunted by a lady in black, still believed today.

The wars end.
To celebrate the end of both the war in Germany,(VE day) and at a later date the end of the war in Japan (VJ day), the children of Lampards Buildings had a big tea party with a huge table full of cakes, sandwiches, drinks and many things we could not remember having before.
This was followed by a gigantic bonfire at the bottom of Harley Street when we were joined by the people in the area. After the bonfire was lit people began singing the like of which I had never heard before, with kissing and hugging and dancing that went on long after I had fallen asleep.

Summary
Had it not been for my fathers accident I may never have remembered so many details but he cheated death three times, two of these by saving my life and for a man with his injuries you could never believe it possible.
Many years later I attended a training course for Purchasing and Supply, this included a visit to Coppenacre where we were taken around the tunnels. During this visit one of the instructors approached me and asked if I was any relation to Frank Hulbert to which I replied, "he was my dad." He took my hand and held it tight I felt it would fall off, and said with feeling "he was a man to be proud of and should have died in these tunnels as no man could possibly have survived that fall." But he did and I am proud of him.

My dad died in 1968 his heart could take no more.

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