大象传媒

This is a war story as told to me by my late father Ivor Edward Packer (1912-1958).

Despite a number of attempts by my father to serve in the Royal Navy he was refused on medical grounds and so he spent the war years as a civilian working at Avonmouth docks, Bristol SW England. The port of Avonmouth is at the mouth of the river Avon as it joins the river Severn having flowed from the city of Bristol which in the 1940s boasted it鈥檚 own city docks.

Ivor lived with his wife Avis and baby daughter Pauline in a cottage in the village of Lawrence Weston about 3 miles from Avonmouth. He cycled or walked to the port to do what was a very dangerous job 鈥� loading and unloading merchant vessels.

It was a dangerous job because the ships came in on one tide were unloaded and loaded so that they sailed on the next tide, that is roughly a 12 hour turn around. Nothing was to stop the operation as all British ports were targeted by the luffwaffer and the longer a ship was docked the more vulnerable it became. Neither the ship nor it鈥檚 precious cargo could be risked in extended port visits.

Because speed was of an essence the unloading and loading of all ships was to carry on no matter what. It followed therefore that the dockers worked through air raids knowing that the very ship they were on was the exact target of the German bomber overhead. As the men worked one would be on deck watching the planes and when he shouted 鈥淒own鈥� the dockers fell to the deck and waited for the next command, 鈥淐arry on lads鈥�. It must have been terrifying to be out in the open with tracer bullets all around you. The noise must have been terrific with planes, cranes, shouting working men, bullets, bombs, cargos. My father left for work one day and often did not return home for 2/3 more days and nights if several ships followed one another on subsequent tides.

While this was happening 3 miles away my mother was at home in the cottage where she could stand on the front doorstep and see the lights of the planes and bullets in the darkness following the line of the river Severn attacking Avonmouth as they went on up the Severn to Sharpness and Gloucester docks. Many times she saw Avonmouth receiving a heavy bombardment and was left wondering if her husband would eventually come home. I cannot imagine my mother had too much time to stand there with a small baby, a disabled and partially sighted elderly father Simon Lukins and an old lady Mrs Leefson next door to get into the shelter at the top of the orchard, but that鈥檚 another war story.
Celia Lukins (nee Packer)

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