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Chapter.3. THE BLITZ IN BRISTOL

We first had a bomb/bombs in Bristol very early in the war and property just below the Eye Hospital was destroyed, including a Red Cross Depot. After that I don't recollect hearing the Air Raid sirens until the evening of the day my dear Grandfather Arthur Noakes died at Frome Road Hospital.

I went out to tell my friend Elaine that Grandad was dead - few people had telephones in their homes then - and I had just walked the length of St.Alban's Road when the sirens sounded and Air Raid Wardens made everyone go into a surface shelter situated aproximately where the Cock of the North (circular) pub now stands. Such shelters were sturdy concrete cubes with entrances either end, protected by a 'dog-leg' entry. almost immediately aircraft could be heard and the hammering of anti-aircraft guns, followed by the bursting of bombs on the ground and the bursting of shells in the air. When, evemntually, I could stand being there no longer, and several hours later, I decided to try getting back to my home.

The sight that met my eyes was amazing and unforgettable. Looking out over the City I could see fires raging everywhere, lighting up our blacked-out streets so that I suspect I could have read a book by the glow. The smell of burning and the 'black snow' of charred paper was somehing to which we were to become well accustomed for the next several months. Another phenomenon to which we were subjected was the "angry swarm of hornets" noise of the shrapnel from the anti-aircraft shells bursting; this came some minutes after the guns fired and the shrapnel, varying in size from thumb-nail to large hand, came down black-hot, red-hot or white hot. As I was out in most if not all the blitzes with no tin-hat and received no injury, I came to have great faith in my guardian angel, it was as though I walked in heavy rain without an umbrella and no spot to rain touched me.

Going to work the morning after a blitz mostly meant walking into the City because transport was necessarily badly disrupted, and the route one took in the morning was usually impassable in the evening when walking home because unexploded bombs had been discovered and cordoned off. I remember one day, when setting off from the Office in Clare street to walk to Redland, I had to go by a very odd route which meant I arrived at the Portway and had to climb Bridge Valley Road and cross the Downs to get home.

On another night I had been rehearsing in the St.Catherine's Hall studio, and just as we were leaving the sirens went and my friend, Elaine, and I were firmly ushered into the undercroft of the pro-Cathedral, where we had to stay for some hours. As the blitz seemed to have quietened down a little, we decided to chance walking home. We had just reached St.Paul's Road traffic-lights, having seen many of the Queen's Road shops well alight, when there was an almighty explosion very close by and the men guarding the portals of the B.B.C. far from asking for our passes made us run quickly down into the cellars of Broadcasting House. En route I saw a sight that I shall always remember, people listening to the evening prayers on their radios would have been astonished to know that the calm, harmonious voices were coming from the B.B.C.Singers and their conductor, Leslie Woodgate, plus the Director of Religious Broadcasting who was reading the prayers, all sitting on the floor in Studio One, under a large and sturdy table lighted only by a couple of storm-lanterns. When we later had a second attempt to get home, we walked all the way up Whiteladies Road with our feet crunching on shattered plate-glass, and seeing a gas-main burning in Alma Road, and Redland Park Church spire spedtacularly burning. As we watched it suddenly collapsed, falling in an incandescent mass down through the tower. Had it been less well made it might have fallen outwards and caused casualties.

That night we just missed falling into a large bomb-crater outside the Boys' entrance of St.John's School because we crossed over to look down into The Glen and see the roller-skating rink being turned to cinders. We walked on across the Downs parting at White Tree(which was still in existence then) and I walked along Etloe Road and Bayswater Avenue in some anxiety because I could see flames ahead and I thought it might be home that was 'going up'. However it was the Bishop who lost his home that night because the Bishop's Palace was hit.

Many other memories remain but it would be repetitious to recount them all, but one memory stands out, the night of the Good Friday blitz when I saw a great many incendiary bombs alight in the pieces of copse on Henbury Golf Ourse - it was lit up like fairyland. On that same night a stick of bombs fell near the top of Falcondale Road - and one did not explode!! - I wonder if they ever found it? It was close behind the Garage there, and I was flat on the floor of the Garage.

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