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Memories from Anne Cook, born 1935, Bristol

‘I was often frightened, and loathed going down into the air raid shelter because of the over-riding smell of damp, mixed with the smell of paraffin from the stove. We spent hours French Knitting and playing shop. When at school we had to put on our gas masks after each morning prayers — just as an exercise, but I still feel like retching at the smell of rubber. After the house was damaged by bombs we were placed in two rooms and shared kitchen and bathroom facilities which lasted nearly two years — but that was on the outskirts of Bristol bordering onto Gloucestershire. We then enjoyed school expeditions to pick hips and wild strawberries for hams. The hips were to be made into rose hip syrup. My Mother worked in a British Restaurant in the village and I was billeted at the Manor House with 15 other children. My father bought me a toy balloon, which was grey and shaped like a barrage balloon which convinced me ‘the Germans’ wouldn’t ‘get me’! It hung in the front window of our home — until the bombs hit it!

Food rationing was still in force when I started nursing in 1952.

One of my late Father’s memories was of bombs falling onto the Aircraft factory where he worked — killing many people and the tannoy carried on playing ‘Donkey Serenade’. He would still cry many years later if that tune was played on the radio.

(Collected by SBC Museums)

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