大象传媒

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I was about three when the war and I remember either in 1940 or 41 when they had a daylight raid on Filton.

It was a beautiful summer's day in June and I was stood outside with mum and a neighbour, a Mr Punter, who lived about three doors up, it was a rank of about six houses and we lived in the first one, number 41 Acacia Road as it was then - the numbers have changed since then.

These planes came over in formation and Mr Punter said, "they鈥檙e ours - they wouldn't have a daylight raid."

Even at that age I knew the sound of the English and German planes - they made very different sounds, very distinctive sounds. I said, "they're German, they are German bombers."

He replied, "no they're not, don't take any notice of him he is only a kid."

Then of course when they flew over, we heard the bombs. That was all I really knew about that particular raid on Filton.

Bombing raid

During those early war years, when our Anderson shelter wasn't a flooded out, I remember we all trooped in there, and I think the lady next door used to come in with us because her Anderson shelter was flooded out - and when we were there we heard bombs dropping and they dropped about 100 yards from where we were on a semi-detached house in Portland Place, which was just across the garden from us, because we had a very long back gardens.

There was a family called Kearns, and they never went out but on that day, I think it was a Saturday night, they went to the Van Dyke Cinema in Fishponds. That night we had this raid and the bomb fell on the semi-detached at the end of Portland Place and flattened it. Two little girls were killed in the other house and that was the nearest we ever came to enemy bombing.

My father used to panic when the sirens went and my mother used to say, "don't panic, don't panic!" And of course my father did panic and he was always the first in the shelter!

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