大象传媒

This story was collected by a volunteer from Frenchay Village Museum, South Gloucestershire, and is added to the website with Audrey's permission, and she has agreed to the terms and conditions of the website.

I was eight years of age when war broke out. I had been staying with an Aunt and Uncle in Swanage while my mum was having a baby. I can remember everyone looking very grave, then I was told war had been declared. I felt frightened and stayed out in the garden not wanting to go into the house.

One day I went with my Aunt to the railway station at Swanage. I can remember seeing all the evacuees arriving at the railway station and feeling so sorry for them.

After a while Dad said I had to come home to Bristol because we might as well die together. My Dad had whitewashed the coal cellar out and we had a double bed and chairs down there. This is where we went when the sirens sounded.

Mum had a friend with three children who lived at Stapleton. Her husband was in the Army. My Dad was in the Fire Service and away a lot, so she would walk to our house in the evenings quite often and spend the night with us. It seemed very quiet at first and then one Sunday night all the bombing on Bristol began. The baby needed a bottle so Mum's friend decided to go upstairs to make one, she had to do it in the dark, not being allowed to put lights on. Roger drank the bottle and was contentedly sleeping the rest of the night. The next morning instead of using baby milk, she realised that she had used Ovaltine by mistake. So from then on he was always known as her "Ovaltine Baby". During 1941 my mother had another baby and when he was only a few weeks old a bomb dropped in the field behind the house. The house shook and the baby just flew up to the ceiling and back into his cot, no harm done!

While we were at school if the siren went we had to run home. After a while they built us a shelter in the ditch opposite the school gate. There were two long forms and we all sat and sung songs.

Food was in short supply and we mostly ate fruit and vegetables. My mother also kept chickens and rabbits. The hens would lay eggs and when they stopped laying she would kill them for us to eat.

She saved the cream from the milk and then would shake it in a glass jar to make butter. Porridge oats was used to make milk pudding, she also used dried milk to make mintoes, these were some kind of peppermint sweets for us. We ate many berries and nuts from trees, and never felt hungry and were never sick.

My father fought the fires in many cities far away such as Coventry and Plymouth, as well as Bristol; and he would come home with a black face covered in soot and grime. He would then often have to carry on with his normal work in the quarry at Frenchay, the powder used to blast the rock in those days would come in a cloth bag. My mother would boil these and use them for pillow cases. Once the cups got broken and we had to use jam jars until someone took pity on us and gave us some cups.

Our treats came when the Americans came to the hospital. Mars bars, chewing-gum, Palmolive soap all for making sure they received the right change from shopkeepers!

Once I can remember going with my father to see where a bomb had dropped, or one plane came down near the entrance in what is now Blackberry Hill Hospital. The telegraph poles and wires had been pulled down and the pilot was killed.

When the war ended on 8th May we were told the school would be closed but Betty Close and myself decided to go and we were the only pupils to attend. The teachers were there and they let us hoist the flag.

Later that day, during the evening, all our family went to Church to celebrate.

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