大象传媒

It was a normal morning at Filton Avenue Junior School, Filton, Bristol. Boring mental arithmatic - my most hated lesson!. Suddenly there was the sound of the air-raid siren which was sited on top of the school. Good, no more mental arithmatic. The class was asked to stand and we all filed onto the playground where the shelters were. As we went we saw low flying aircraft coming towards us whereupon we all started to cheer. But wait, the sound was different and then we could see the markings of the black cross on the wings. They were German aircraft! We were made to run as fast as we could into the shelter and we soon heard the sound of explosions. The teachers decided we should have a sing-song, this was good fun. We all started singing at the tops of our voices. Firstly, the songs we sang at school- Cherry Ripe, Strawberry Fair, etc. When we had exhausted all of these we were still encouraged to sing and we thought it was great fun we were allowed to sing all the popular songs of the day. It certainly drowned out the noise that was going on just a few miles up the road.

Eventually the all clear siren sounded by which time it was lunch time. No school dinners then- we all went home for lunch. I only lived five minutes away and as I hopped and skipped down the road I was surprised to see all the women standing at their gates with very worried expressions. My mother was at our gate and when I asked what was wrong, the news had already reached them that Filton Aerodrome had been bombed. Most of the families living around us had hubands, fathers, brothers and sisters working there. I don't think I had any lunch that day.

We were lucky, both my father and brother were working there but they were safe. The dreadful thing was, of course, that they had missed the aircraft works they had come to destroy and most bombs had landed on the shelters. When my father came home he was extremely shaken and told of the awful sights he had seen. Ther were shelters that were so badly bombed they just had to seal them up.

I am now in my 70's and can remember this tragedy very vividly. It has stayed with me all these years.

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