大象传媒

NOVEMBER 24TH 1940 鈥� A MINOR INCIDENT AT ST. FRANCIS.

It was normal on a Sunday evening in those far off days before the Second World War for my parents to take me to visit relations who lived in a cluster in the streets leading off Greenway Bush Lane, Ashton Gate, Bristol, the focus being my Granny Britton鈥檚 home who lived in Mary St..(It was very amusing to hear her garbled version of the crisscross chatter of my Aunts and Uncles !)
Sunday , November 24th., 1941 only varied in as much as my Father had to continue to Home Guard duty in a building at the end of Duckmoor Rd.. Ashton Gate. I can still clearly see the clock at ten minutes past six as we set out from our home in St Dunstan鈥檚 Rd, (off Bedminster Rd.) and at the same time the air raid sirens sounding. The warnings had been quite often at that time and we did not pay much attention to them. However as we proceeded over Bartlett鈥檚 Bridge, the searchlights were probing the skies, and obviously it was more serious than usual. As we got to West St. we decided to go into a brick built shelter in Ireton Rd. but as things became quieter for a moment we set off again, noticing that fires were burning towards the centre of Bristol. As we reached the end of The Chessels, and into Luckwell Rd. I can remember seeing a German Bomber held in the searchlights. The situation was deteriorating by the minute and so we hurried down North St. to go into the brick shelter which stood on the grass in front of St Francis Church. The shelter鈥檚 entrance was end on to the road, and the other end was more or less facing the Chancel end of the Church.
The situation by this time, was very bad, we could hear explosions coming from near and far as the bombs rained down, and I presume some anti-aircraft gunfire. At every crunch we would winch, until there was a tremendous bang, which shook the shelter, loosened the dust in the walls and the ceiling and made the thirty or so people in the shelter cower with fear. After several hours, as it was a lot quieter outside my Father was able to continue to his Home Guard duties.
The quieter situation also meant that a tram driver and conductor were able to go and inspect their tram which had been left in the road outside.. When they returned, they showed a lump of masonry of several bricks still cemented together which they had found crashed onto the top deck of the tram. We also learnt that the tremendous explosion had been a bomb destroying several houses opposite the Church Hall in Durnford Avenue, which runs along the lower side of the Church property. The masonry on the tram had been hurled over the Church Hall and over the Church onto the tram!
The All Clear sounded just after midnight, so Mother and I continued to Walter St. about 300 yds away (the house where I was born) to find that the old house was still standing but badly shaken, dust, plaster and glass every where, but the family was safe. That was more than could be said for an old man who insisted on seeing the blitz through, sat in his fireside chair at home in Peter St. (no longer on the map). That is where they found him dead, in the rubble of his home. My cousin and I saw that destruction and also as we went to the top of Greenway Bush Lane we saw the fires burning in the timber yards on the other side of The Cut.
That piece of masonry flying over the top of the Church was a very MINOR INCIDENT to that which happened a few months later, when the Church was destroyed. To me all these years later it is still a very vivid memory and when I am in that area I very often wonder what if鈥︹��? what if that bomb which hit Durnford Avenue had been released a second earlier or perhaps later 鈥� it could have been a very major incident to the thirty or so people in that shelter on that Sunday night.
Laurie Britton.

PS On a lighter note 鈥� a couple of raids later found Mother and I sitting under the stairs whilst Father was keeping an eye out for incendiary bombs on the house. I became very confused when I thought I heard Father say 鈥淢r Hale (who lived a few doors away) was in our garden鈥� . What is he doing there? I thought, - the light dawned when Father repeated 鈥淚t is like hell out there!鈥�

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