大象传媒

Memories of a Nazi raid on Henleaze in 1941

My address at the time was Dorset Villas, Westbury on Trym, Bristol.

In our air shelter, constructed by my father in the coal house, was my mother, my sister Mary, my brother Phillip and neighbours Mrs Naish with her daughter Elizabeth.

I was 18 years of age and outside the house as a fire watcher. The night raids usually started between 7pm and 7.30pm most evenings.

I could hear a German plane circling overhead for some time, suddenly a flare was released on a parachute which rotated around and around lighting up the houses and gardens in the area as if it were daylight.

The flare and parachute passed overhead and landed in wasteland behind some houses in Eastfield, where my father kept his car in a rented garage.

All of a sudden, there was a dreadful screeching sound (as of an express train travelling at full speed through a small station) and a thunderous explosion as the bombs fell and I could hear a scream.

I dived for cover by the fence, I was standing on the corner of Cheriton Place and Eastfield.

Bricks, mortar and debris fell all around me. The worst effect was the choking dust which got into my lungs, resulting in nose bleeds for days on end and heavy catarrh.

The air cleared and I helped to open the entrance of an Anderson shelter upon which part of a house had collapsed. Inside there was a mother and child unharmed.

I decided to run home, almost falling over telephone wires across the path, to see if my mother and everybody else was alright in the shelter.

My mother was very upset to see my condition. I was virtually covered in brick and mortar dust and she did not want me to go out again.

The all-clear sounded and the family took a look around the house. Upstairs in my parents bedroom was a hole through the roof - you could see the night sky.

On the bed was a car sump which we found out later was part of a car a visitor had left outside of a house in Cheriton Place approximately 100 yards away. The visitor's body was recovered the next day.

In the next bedroom there was another large hole in the roof through which clumps of clay had smashed into books and furniture. My father came home the following day and he decided to take my mother, sister and brother to my Aunty Gladys and my Uncle Fred who lived in Bath.

I decided to remain in Bristol with my grandmother in Albert Villas, Cotham, Bristol to keep her company.

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