大象传媒

Entered on behalf of Alec Mawditt
This is an account of the war years through the eyes of a young school boy in Bristol.

My name is Alec Mawditt, and I lived with my parents and elder sister, Eileen, at 22 St. Michaels鈥� Hill. I was 13 years old and attended Stokes Croft School for about 2 years. During the early days of the war not very much had happened, but when France fell to the Nazis, we began to experience daylight air-raids and watched fascinated at dog-fights between British RAF fighter pilots and German fighters. There was sporadic Ack-Ack (anti-aircraft) gun-fire from sites around the city, and pieces of shrapnel were collected and displayed with pride. Things got much more serious when the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) were excavated from Dunkirk, and soldiers arrived at any Railway Terminal they could get to.

I remember my mother went to Temple Meads station where one contingent had arrived, and brought two soldiers home, where they stayed until the Army could re-muster the Regiments. These men had nothing but the shabby uniforms they had fought in and their rifles, plus some ammunition.

I was singing in the choir at St Michaels Church, at Evensong on the night of 24 November, the church was full, and bombs began dropping all around us. It soon became apparent that a big raid was in progress. The parish Rector, Rev, Vivian Jones decided to abandon the service in the church, and led us all down into the crypt below which had been prepared in advance for just such an event. There we continued the service and felt reasonably safe. I well remember the sight of the city burning as we made that brief journey.

Nothing had prepared me for what greeted us the next day, when the full extent of the raid was revealed, and many well-known buildings had been blown away. Also when I arrived at where our school should have been, it had been completely demolished by HE (High-Explosive) bombs and fire. Fortunately, the Head-master and his family had survived, and arrangements were subsequently made (about six months) for us to continue our education at another building further up Gloucester Road, however, the incident had interrupted our schooling considerably. For many nights after that we took shelter, either in our own cellar, under the stairs or in the church crypt. There was one particular night I remember when there were about two-hundred people sheltering in the crypt when there was a thunderous explosion quite close. We all thought this was the end, it transpired however, that a 1000lb HE bomb had landed in the graveyard close to the church leaving a 30 feet crater, blowing away a few adjacent cottages, and covering the church tower with mud.

How my parents coped in those months I cannot imagine. We had a large house to black-out, heavy shutters were an advantage as protection from the effects of the blast, but all the windows of the house had to be covered in translucent adhesive to reduce dangers of glass shards. Mother managed to feed us somehow, on meagre food rations. My father did a full-time job, Home-Guard duties, an allotment to cultivate, to help with the food supply, responsibility for our safety, small wonder that he lost his cool occasionally. I recall one night in the small hours we were all awakened by local fire-watchers because the church roof was on fire, caused by an incendiary-bomb dropped by the Luftwaffe earlier. Father realised that all the people sheltering in the crypt would perish if they were not warned. He immediately ran to the church and helped evacuate them. Meanwhile, I slept on, too exhausted to get up. Anyway, such was the spirit of defiance in those days that despite the roof being completely gutted, we still managed a service the following Sunday.

My elder sister had joined the AFS (Auxiliary Fire Service) in the catering branch, also her husband, Leslie, but he wanted more action, and joined the RNVR, becoming first a gunnery seaman, and later as a Sub Lieutenant, serving in a ship in the Far East, and was mentioned in despatches for rescuing a seaman in shark infested waters.

There was plenty for me to do meanwhile. As boy scouts we volunteered to go round the neighbourhood assembling Morrison Shelters (a simple but stout cage, designed to support the upper stories of a house if it fell upon one) however, not many old folk could climb into it. I subsequently joined the ARP (Air Raid Precaution) service, my age would only permit me to be a messenger-boy, but this did not deter me from assisting firemen to extinguish buildings on fire. As I approached my 14th birthday I realised that I had to do something about my education, a job at WD and HO Wills in Bedminster did nothing to raise my morale, and so I joined the army as an apprenticed tradesman, with schooling as well, perhaps because all my friends were in uniform of one kind or another. Thus while not actually in combat, I felt I was doing something to help the war-effort, while helping myself as well.

In recent years I visited the area, and was very sad to find the parish almost totally de-populated. The old church which had sheltered us so well was all locked and boarded up, while the church-yard I knew so well had become a car park. I preferred the memories of the war-time to the 鈥減rogress鈥� that peace had brought.

15 May 2004

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