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STORY TITLE; MY WAR IN BRISTOL
SHELAGH BLISS

THE BEGINNING

Lamb was for lunch on that sunny September Sunday in 1939. My father was mowing the lawn, and the sweet smell of the cut grass mingled with the smell of chopped mint. Mint I had just picked and taken to the kitchen. My father looked at his watch and told me to come indoors and listen to the wireless. I was reluctant to leave the garden, but my curiosity got the better of me, and I followed him to the back room, collecting mother on the way.

The large Bush wireless set crackled into life as dad fiddled with the tuner. Mum and I sat on the fender seats by the unlit fire. All the neighbours had stopped mowing their grass, and for a moment there was intense silence. Then a voice came on the wireless announced Mr Chamberlain, the Prime Minister. He told us that negotiations with Germany had broken down, and we were now at War. My mother exclaimed quietly that it was so soon after the last war, and then she returned to the kitchen to baste the joint. I asked dad if there would be any bombs, he answered 鈥淚鈥檓 afraid so鈥�. The only bombs I knew about were black round objects with smoke coming out, that I saw in comics.

AN UNEASY CALM

Life went on as usual. Nothing happened except for Corporation workers digging a hole at the bottom of our garden, and erecting an Anderson shelter. The shelter filed with water after a few days and the workers came back, pumped it out and lined it with concrete. They were also busy building public shelters at the junctions of the streets. In the streets we also had great big static water tanks and lots of sandbags, which after a while, split open, and you could play with the sand. All the shelters had the same smell-damp concrete and mud. I planted marigold seeds on the soil covering the top of our shelter, and they spread and looked very beautiful. My aunt Enid, who ran a sweet and tobacconist shop on the Gloucester Road, called Bastables, had not got room in her garden for an Anderson shelter, so the Corporation gave her an indoor Morrison shelter. It was an iron cage, with grills down the side. I remember eating Christmas dinner off it once. It came in very useful as a large dining table.

THE BLITZ

Everything seemed very peaceful until the first siren wailed one evening. We were sitting in the garden; it was still light because of double summer time. I remember I was eating a spring onion at the time, when we heard this low droning noise. Above our heads the sky became black with German bombers. They were flying north to bomb the Bristol Aeroplane Works, which was just up the road from us. Then the anti- aircraft guns on the Purdown started to fire, and we all felt very safe when this happened. All of a sudden the guns fell silent, then in flew our Spitfires, weaving in and out of the great German formation. It broke into disarray, and we, and our neighbours cheered. That was to be the first of many raids, both day and night. We got into a routine after a while of going to the shelter to sleep after our evening meal. It saved being woken, and having to leave a warm bed in the middle of the winter. We slept in the hammocks Dad put up. It was very difficult trying to do homework whilst balancing in a hammock. Sometimes, we could not get to the shelter as too much shrapnel was falling. On these occasions we hid under the stairs in a cupboard. It was there one night鈥︹�︹�︹�︹�� you have the rest!

It was there, one night when dad was away on sea-trials of the Corvettes
Bristol was building, that Charlie, our lodger, who was a
Chef at the Aeroplane works went upstairs and returned with
his butcher鈥檚 knives. He handed mum and me a knife each and
told us to stick any German who landed, as "the only good
German was a dead one". I was much more frightened of the
knives at that moment, than any German, so mum allowed me
to draw on the wall with my wax crayons.

Now and then we lost our electricity and water supply because
of the bombing. I remember having to walk to Patchway, which
was over the border into Gloucestershire to fetch water in
a galvanized bath. It was heavy when it was empty but coming
home with it full was very hard work.

At the height of the incendiary bomb raids, the centre of
Bristol was a mass of flames, and you could see the shadows
of the firemen's ladders on the low clouds. It was very cold
at this time, making it difficult for the firemen because the
water was frozen.

We all learned to deal with incendiary bombs, when they dropped
Near us and had buckets of water, sandbags and a stirrup pump
handy. One night emerging from our shelter for a breath of air,
the sky was so colourful with searchlights and red and green
tracer bullets floating through the air that I exclaimed "Oh mum!
its just like fairyland" I don't remember her reply.

SCHOOL SHELTER

Our school shelter was completely underground. We had to walk
on duck boards to avoid the water which accumulated on the
clay soil. Each form had a corridor to itself, which led from
the main passage way. All the corridors had benches along each
side and there were air-holes (a missing brick) high up on the
walls. After walking, (not running) to the shelter we would
sit in our corridors in semi-darkness continuing our lessons,
with our form teacher, all of which were very old or very young
because most adults were conscripted into the armed forces.
The noise of battle was very evident in our shelter mainly
because the school was very near Purdown the home of our
favourite gun, Purdown Percy. One morning, whilst in the shelter
Purdown Percy and his pals became silent and we knew the
Spitfires were engaging in a dogfight right over our heads.
We clustered around the little airholes to see what was happening
and witnessed the shooting down of a plane. We all cheered with
delight. Only later did we find out that it was a Spitfire
and a feeling of terrible guilt was felt by all. When I got
back to my classroom I found a large piece of shrapnel embedded
in my desk. I tried to remove it, as we all collected shrapnel.
We used to get up early before school and went looking for the
bits of metal, then comparing it with our friends collection
to see who had the largest piece.

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