大象传媒

One day I had been visiting my gran at Avonmouth, I went home by train. You had to climb up steps to get out of the station, as I walked towards my house all I could hear was the noise of aircraft, but I could only see low cloud. As the plane dropped below the cloud I could even see the man in the cockpit. As the planes passed, they dropped bright orange flares, these had to be dropped because of the low cloud. They were heading down the A38 to the centre where the docks were. After the flares, the planes completely disappeared. There were no longer sirens going off, just the sound of many bombers. Then they dropped bombs down the line of the flares. I ran with my mother through the house and into the brick shelter in the garden. My mother was terrified.
In the daytime I used to sit out in the fields and watch the German planes go past. Puffs of grey or orange would come from the back of the planes. When bits of flack used to explode, bits of shell would fly off. I collected bits of shrapnel.
There were about 21 air raids every day, but not just at night. The Germans bombed the factories and the shelters, it was terrifying but you got used to it after a while.
My uncle was in submarines, the Germans used to drop charges. My dad was in Europe when the war ended, there was a huge party in the street on VE day.
As a child there was a shop on Gloucester Road, we used to buy our sweets there, chocolate and sweets were rationned. One day we bought some chocolate, but no-one told us it was chocolate flavoured Ex-Lax!

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