大象传媒

My earliest recollection of WW2 would be when the Luftwaffe bombed the Eastville Gas works. One house was totally destroyed on the corner of Sandy Lane and Stapleton Road. One bomb landed in the river Frome by the Muller Road Bridge, and the rest hit the Gas works themselves. I was hiding under the Morrison? shelter in our front room. My Auntie Grace wouldn't use the shelter, she was in the cupboard under the stairs.Our house was about 400 yards from the gas works. I remember all the noises: explosions from the AA guns, sirens, drone of the aircraft engines, roar of the fire. My two uncles left the house to help people in Sandy Lane. There was so much gas in the air that they were crawling on their hands and knees with wet clothes to their faces because of the heat and the gas fumes.

Early one morning, during 1944, I had a row with my mother. I decided I wanted to leave home. I was five years old. I decided to join the army rather than live with mother any more. I was friendly with the soldiers at the search light battery in Eastville Park, so I went to join them and spent all day with them. Meanwhile Mother was frantic with worry and didn't find me until 4 o'clock in the afternoon. I was drinking a large mug of cocoa and eating a large doorstep jam sandwich compliments of His Majesties Armed Forces. Mother on finding me promptly gave me the biggest tongue lashing I had ever received to that date and a clip round the ear hole for good measure.

At the top of Purdown between Muller Road and Ashley Down Station, was a large American army transport depot, consisting of tanks, lorries and ambulances.
One sunday morning I was awoken by the noise of tanks trundelling down Muller Road and turning into Stapleton Road on their way to the docks, I think it may had something to do with the Normandy landings most of the children of the area was lining the road that the convoy was taking. The American troops being the generous people they are were throwing sweets, hursey bars, chewing gum etc. to the children, there was so much of the items mentioned the street was littered with them. It felt like all my christmases and easters until that date rolled into one.

Sometime in 1945-46 I was on my way back to school at Combe Road from my dinner break, it had to be in the summer, because the sky was perfectly clear and was full of hundreds of American aircraft flying across Bristol in a westerly direction, I found out later that it was probably the American 8th airforce going home. It was a fantastic sight they seemed to go on forever.

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