大象传媒

Transcribed on the Comput@bus at Brockhampton Rural Learning Event

I was living at Thornbury 10 miles outside Bristol as a schoolboy when the Blitz occurred. I remember seeing the sky lit up at night and also seeing some planes shot down including a Heinkel. As boys we used to get on our bikes and try to find out where the plane had crashed. This one crashed at Fallfield. All the crew had been killed and one poor chap had tried to parachute out too late and landed in a tree.
We got a little blas茅 and also used to go out looking for shrapnel even when the Ack Ack guns were firing. We had no helmets and didn鈥檛 realise how dangerous it was.
Several of my friends who were older than me were killed in action.

The Maritime Ack Ack were based around Thornbury. They were known as the soldiers at sea. They were on the Russian convoys and some of them came back to the area for convalescence after being torpedoed.

Later I was called up to join the army ( Just before VE day and VJ Day ) and went from Bristol to Carlisle. From there I went to Stanraer and then to Larne and finished up at Worlds End Camp Ballykinlar. The H bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and so I never got to see active service. I carried training for another three years and then joined the police force when I was demobbed.
One very strange co incidence happened when I attended an accident at Staverton. While talking to one of the drivers, a chauffeur, he remarked that he had lost his son in the army in the midde east. The break down lorry driver who attended the accident turned out to have been the chauffeur drivers sons sergeant and he had been present when the son was killed. As a result they became great friends.

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