大象传媒

The Hulbert family lived at 43 Lampards Building, Julian Road, Lansdown, Bath. My family consisted of my father Frank, mother Winifred, sister Jean and myself, Roy.

My story starts in the early years of the 1930鈥檚 before the war began and for readers to understand my true feelings of the story that follows it has proud memories for me and must be disclosed.

My father was a tunnel face cutting machine operator employed as part of a team by the government Defence Ministry, to excavate the tunnels of Coppenacre near Bath, Somerset, later to be used for the storage of ammunition. On one fateful day he was making a cut that was to have far reaching consequences. He instructed the rest of the team to move back away from the cutting area while he made a particular cut. He then started to make the cut, at this point the roof of the tunnel collapsed and he became entombed in the cab of the machine and unknown to anyone was lying pinned in the crushed cap, critically injured.
To the rest of the team and to the managers on site it seemed completely and utterly devastating situation the feeling being that no one could have survived under the rubble. After the dust had settled an assessment was made and it was agreed to wait until the collapsed area had become stabilized before work began to clear and shore up the roof of the tunnel. After a long period of time the working team found the back of the cutting machine and began working forward to the cab area in order to recover, as they believed, my father鈥檚 body. However, they soon found him, but imagine the shock when they found he was in fact still alive, but critically injured.
My father sustained serious head injuries and facial injuries and had many operations performed, I believed by a Dr Kindersley and his team. They implanted a metal disc in his head to replace the part of his scull he had lost. In the early years of the 1930鈥檚 they were unable to perform facial reconstruction, resulting in my father continuing the rest of his life with only half of his forehead complete. With a great deal of loving care by his family and continual drug treatment and the skill of medical care, life moved on for my family, but we still had my dad.
With this situation and the build up to my wartime memories of Bath Blitz I can now continue with my family experiences and, as a seven year old child, my memories are spasmodic, some details and reasons were later explained to me of actions taken by my family.

Rules of War: Never stay in the open during an air-raid, find the nearest cover. When hearing the whine of a falling bomb get as near to the ground as possible.

April 25th 1942

Shortly after going to bed I was woken by my father saying that we must go down to the coal cupboard under the stairs as the air-raid siren had sounded. This was our usual action taken when sirens sounded. On running downstairs I could here the whine of a bomb falling and thinking, what鈥檚 that funny sound? (I had never heard the sound of a bomb falling before). I kept running through the sitting room into the kitchen, followed by my dad. As we rounded the corner I heard a terribly loud bang and with it I remember being thrown to the ground with my dad on top of me. I heard another big crash just above us; this was the crash of our big solid back door being blown from its hinges across the kitchen, and crashing against the wall with dad and me under it. We climbed out from under it and into the coal cupboard where we spent the rest of the air-raid frightened by every exploding bomb that came whining down around us. I later learned that had my dad not thrown himself on top of me we could have both been injured or even killed. We later learned that this much have been the bomb that scored a direct hit on a house at the Bottom of Burlington St. in Julian Road.

April 26th 1942

Frightened by what had happened the night before my mum arranged with the Landlord of the Portland Arms public house (at the top of Balance St.) that, should another air-raid happen, we could go to his cellar, as others had done. To this he agreed. Shortly after dark the air-raid sirens sounded again, my dad again woke me up and took me downstairs but this time we were to go to the cellar at the Portland Arms before the bombs started to fall. I remember very clearly my father saying to me 鈥渓isten very closely my son when I say run, you run and don鈥檛 stop for anything no matter what might happen on the way, you run straight to the Portland arms and into the cellar, remember, don鈥檛 stop O.K.鈥�, 鈥測es dad鈥�. He blew out the candle and opened the front door, took me by the hand and shouted 鈥渞un!鈥� We ran, out of the door and up the short steep hill. I remember that as I continued to run there was a strange glow in the street, I could hear quite clearly the vroom, vroom, vroom of the plains overhear. This was not a strange sound anymore, as I had heard it the night before. So as I ran and I ran, my young legs began ti go faster than my dad鈥檚 for he had begun to fall behind. As I rounded the left hand corner at the top of Lampards buildings, and I stopped suddenly, for in front of me the sky was glowing bright red and orange, I shouted 鈥渙oh look dad, look at the sky!鈥� Again I was being thrown to the ground with my dad on top of me, but this time no big crash or bang, just a putt, putt, putt, putt again over our heads. Dad stood up, picked me up, grabbed my hand and we ran again and made it to the Portland Arms where we all spent the rest of the night.

April 27th 1942

As the raids stopped and daylight came, we came out of the cellar and I began to understand how lucky we had all been, but what I did not know until much later, was how lucky my dad and I had really been. For many weeks after when my family talked about the raids I discovered that my dad and I were shot at by enemy aircraft strafing the area, the results of which could be seen by the bullet holes in the side wall of no 27 Lampards Buildings for many years after.
As the family walked back home, the street was covered with bricks, wood, broken glass and all kinds of rubble and every house in the street had a broken window, except our house. My dad believed that the reason our house had no broken windows was that when we ran out of the house at the start of the raid he had forgotten to close the front door.
We were met by Mr Porter, who was an air-raid warden for our street, I cannot forget him on that day for his head was covered by a large bandage with a small trickle of blood down his cheek. He told us that he had been cut by flying glass. Mr Porter owned the Chippy at the bottom of our street, he told us he had found our door open after the raid and kept an eye on it until we returned.
In my Aunt and Uncle鈥檚 house, they lived at no 55 Lampards Buildings, an incendiary bomb came through the landing window and bounced down the stairs setting fire to the staircase. My aunts family decided to stay in the house during the raids which my have been a good thing as my uncle along with neighbours managed to get the bomb out of the house and put the fire out with sand. I still have the tailpiece of the bomb as a souvenir.
Sadly, 9 months later my Aunt and Uncle were to lose their son Kenneth Watts aged 19 on the 15th of December in the Battle of Sangro Rover crossing, Italy. This was another blow to my dad as Ken was his favourite nephew. This was the first time I had seen by dad cry.

After effects of the raids.
I cannot forget the days that followed, not only the raids but also to the end of the war. As the days moved on and fear of more raids began to pass, my parents allowed me to go out but not too far from home. I saw many changed, the bottom two houses on both sides of Burlington street were no longer there, just piles of bricks, but what was there was a terrible smell that got stronger each day, I was later to be told it was the smell of death. There were open spaces at the bottom of Harley Street and Northampton street. Across Julian Road, st Andrews church was not only a shell. I not began to explore further from home. There was a big flat area at the back of the circus, and ircus mews was just rubble, the Regina Hotel was only a shell with half of it blown away, The Assembly rooms was just a burned out shell.

All of these area鈥檚 will not play a large part of my growing up. For whatever reason, I could not go to Christchurch school. I had to go to St. Mary鈥檚 Roman Catholic School; this was good for me because each Wednesday afternoon we had off as the rest of the Catholic children went, I think, to Holy Communion. My friends and I could find other more exciting things to do. Tarzan was all the rage at that time and as a lot of bomb damage was being repaired following the raids, one of our favourite games was swinging on the hoist ropes used by builders. One such site was at the bottom of Gloucester Street, my pals and I were playing Tarzan, one friend that we always called Davis was swinging, when all the bricks stacked above began to fall, we called 鈥渓ookout!鈥� but it was too late, he was hit by all the bricks and was rushed to hospital. The next morning at school assembly the dead teacher Miss Davies told us that Davis had died and all the children in assembly had to promise to never play that sort of game again.
As children in the war years we lived with danger but we could never see it. Playing on the bomb site was a huge past time. Another game was seeing how high we could climb up the steel ladder on the side of St. Andrews church, some lads climbed to the top but not me; I could only get half way up. I later found out I suffer from vertigo. This bit of entertainment soon stopped, for they took the top of the steel ladder away.
As a result of the air-raids two safes were lost in the ruins at the bottom of Northampton Street. As a form of dig for victory, volunteers were asked for to help dig the rubble away and a reward of 拢5 was to be given to the finders of any of the safes. A friend and I found one and received 拢2.10.00d each, that was a lot of money then, my mum was pleased because my dad, neing unable to work, only received a small amount of compensation.
Unknown to a lot of people, tunnels were in the ruins of circus Mews and at that time we all played in gangs. We found an entrance to one of these tunnels, we were all too scared to walk to the end at first, but we got braver each day and at last got to the end. At the end was a small window and we could see into the back of the houses in the circus, we all agreed to make this our gang hide out as no other gangs would be brave enough to go in there.
When I talk about being scared, friends and I would never play in the ruins of the Regina Hotel, there were stories being spread that the ruins were haunted by the guests that were killed by the direct hit of the bomb and the fire that followed. The same rumour was of a haunting in the Assembly Rooms, but in this case it was haunted by a lady in black, still believed today.

The Wars End
To celebrate the end of both the war in Germany, (VE day) and at a later date the end of the war in Japan (VJ day), the children of Lampards Buildings had a big tea party with a huge table full of cakes, sandwiches, drinks, and many things we could not remember having before.
This was followed by a gigantic bonfire at the bottom of Harley Street when we were joined by all the people in the area, after the bonfire was lit people began singing the like of which I had never heard before, with kissing and hugging and dancing, that went on long after I had fallen asleep.

Summary
Had it not been for my father鈥檚 accident I may never have remembered so many details, but he cheated death three times, two of these by saving my life and for a man with his injuries you could never believe it possible. Many years later I attended a training course for Purchase and Supply, this included a visit to coppenacre where we were taken around the tunnels. During this visit one of the instructors approached me and asked if I was any relation to a Frank Hulbert, to which I replied, 鈥淗e was my dad.鈥� He took my hand and held it so tight I felt that it would fall of and said with feeling, 鈥渉e was a man to be proud of and should have died in these tunnels as no man could possibly have survived that fall鈥�, but he did and I am proud of him. My dad died in 1968, his heart could take no more.

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