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My sister and I still laugh about this. I was three years old when war broke out, the baby of a family of five so my childhood was the war. My father worked in the Air Ministry at Sneyd Park; and we lived near the Downs in Westbury Park. My mother was a temporary caretaker for the local school.

The Easter raid was bad, it was Good Friday when Bristol was heavily blitzed and we were taken into the air-raid shelter that my relatives built; we had one of the best ones in the road, it was an Anderson Shelter dug out by my brother and brother-in-law, other people had a Morrison shelter under the dining table, our neighbour went under that with 6 cats. I remember we were given a packet of Hollyhock seeds which were planted nearby and we were also given silver identity bracelets.

When the raid started, we went to the shelter — 8 of us; mum was on fire watch at the local church but came back as it was so bad, (altogether we were there 8 hours as the planes came and went) mum asked where dad was, when she looked he was asleep snoring in his bed, he was used to sleeping where he could, from being in World War One. In the shelter we always had blankets, a kettle full of water, paraffin heater, cocoa, tinned milk, tea, matches, and candles.

My sister and I still laugh about this. In one of the Bristol raids mum was on duty and suddenly realised that she didn’t have her teeth and had to come running back for them. She never went on fire watch without her teeth again! There were other funny stories too, some you couldn’t repeat.

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