大象传媒

From 1930 until the latter part of 1939 I attended St. Nicholas School situated in the inner-city at Queen Charlotte Street, Bristol 1. With the Parish church (St Nicholas) situated at Baldwin Street and Bristol Bridge. Early in 1940 civilians were invited to attend ARP instructions on how to tackle fire bombs. I attended with my father such a demonstration at the Netham, Feeder road.

Early in 1940 ther had been isolated air raids by German bombers and about this time the old boys of the school and church were asked to form fire watching groups for both the school and the church. These old boys were in fact young boys aged 15 to about 17 and on some Saturdays some of these boys, of which I was one, climbed the school rooves and the church having much fun using stirrup pumps. Part of that fun was positioning the school caretaker and directing water on him from the roof. The caretaker was a Mr Brock. Whilst our fathers were aware of our activities, mothers were probably kept in the dark.

In 1940, at the time of the first blitz early on a Sunday evening, I was with three or four of my friends at King Street near the Theatre Royal when the sky was illuminated by flares. A man, obviously a veteran of the Western Front, then demanded to know where we lived and ordered us off the streets. Two of these boys (they were brothers) lived in one of these Elizabethan houses close to the Theatre Royal. One boy, Leonard Whitehead, lived at College Street. In my case, I lived with my family in Prince Street, City Centre. Reluctantly, bearing in mind we were fire watchers, we went to our homes and of course by half past seven at night both the school and the church were destroyed. Two buildings of the school survived but were badly damaged. One of these two buildings became the ARP post in the central A sector. Some of my friends, like myself, joined the ARP as messengers.

This time the blitz was on Bristol and people spent twelve hours nightly in air raid shelters. My family, who were not at that time in the services, took shelter beneath what is now part of the Theatre Royal. Bearing in mind most young men had enlisted in the armed forces including two of my brothers, leaving the male population mature men or engaged in essential war work. This was a situation in these blitz's in the centre of the city. In a lull in the raids us boys would leave from the shelter and check to see if our homes were still standing. On one occasion with my father we went to our home at 30 Prince Street and whilst standing in the street and without prior warning, we could hear the rush of falling bombs (a rush of air was an indication that the bombs were likely to drop quite close to you). We ran and made the passage of our house and a bomb dropped in the centre of the road immediately outside of the house. That was our lucky night because it did not detonate. That bomb was one of three, one exploding near the CWS building and a further bomb dropped close to Prince Street Bridge. As far as I am aware an unexploded bomb is still embedded in the mud beneath the bottom of Prince Street. In total at least seven bombs dropped in Prince Street alone. This shows the intensity of the bombing in the city centre.

In relation to the ARP post in Queen Charlotte Street the wardens were extremely busy during the course of air raids. the building being surrounded by sandbags offered some protection but on one particular raid I was in the ARP station with one other person and to a fifteen year old boy, as I was, the other person was an attractive nineteen/twenty year old girl in a blue set of overalls and a steel helmet. Bombs dropped quite close and one almighty explosion was about a hundred yards away and can be seen to this day on the quay wall at the Welsh Back. The attractive young ARP warden and myself were sheltering under the table-tennis table, with the floor shaking we decided to evacuate to the shelter at King Street.

Fifty years later whilst I was in a social club at Westbury Road, two women entered the room carrying a table. By voice recognition, before they came into sight, I recognised the voice of the attractive young ARP warden. I quoted her maiden name, Patricia Meacham, which made her non plussed because that was her name from the past and I was then able to remind her of her sheltering under the table-tennis table.

Us boys grew to the age when we ourselves joined various branches of the armed forces. In my case I followed two of my brothers' choice and enlisted in the Royal Marines and saw service in Europe. A further brother had been mobilized with the RNVR Flying Fox and was serving with the fleet in the Atlantic and Meditteranien. With regard to my school peers, who also joined the services, one of the fire watchers was killed on his nineteenth birthday serving with the army in Italy. When I walk through Queen Square I see houses where their sons never came out.

This just portrays the fortunes of war. some live and some die.

Neighbours and second cousins (named Waring) to my family also lived in Prince Street and one of these female cousins lost her life in the Wednesday air raid on the Bristol Air Craft Company's factory at Filton.

Other cousins of mine served in various parts of the world. One Stanley Behrend was killed at the battle of Kohima, Burma when the Japanese were defeated in one of the most ferocious battles in the Far East.

In relation to myself, I consider myself fortunate in relation to my fellow marines. My service was confined to France and Belgium and I finished with the 3rd Commando Brigade at the end of 1946.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.