大象传媒

A lie in, when something magical happened. There, on the white sheets of my bed was a picture of the street outside. I called
my parents to see, and Dad explained that the blackout was acting as a Camera obscurer, and that there must be a little
hole somewhere in the blackout. We found it, no bigger than a
pin hole - real magic.

SEEING THE DAMMAGE

My parents and I walked from Old Market Street to the city centre looking at all the familiar places, and seeing which had gone.

The Empire Theatre was still standing. Mum and dad took me there regularly to see Variety shows and I can remember being there one night when the sirens went, and they announced this fact from the stage, and asked people to leave if they wanted to but that the show would continue. No-one left.

A stick of bombs had wiped out all the shops on the other side of Old Market Street, but there was a B.H.S. resturant in a pre-fabricated building, where we stopped for a cup of tea. when we got to the city centre we found that nearly all the beautiful Dutch style houses were gone. The Hippodrome still stood, as well as the Colston Hall. The Prince's Theatre was destroyed, but the Theatre Royal, the oldest theatre in Britain was safe.

Built in 1776 it used to be called 'The Old Gaff. It is now the home of the Bristol Old Vic.

As we walked through battered Bristol we came to the docks area and were suddenly aware of people up on the Causeway shouting
at us. We went up the steps to discover a large notice saying UXB/ anA unexploded bomb, and we had walked right by it.

CLOTHING

The air-raids diminished. School went back to full-time, but the struggle to get food and clothing went on. Mum tried to
make me a pair of fur mittens out of rabbit skin, but it was not cured properly, and it wasn't long before the mittens began
to smell. She also found a shop selling shoes without clothing
coupons. She bought me a pair for school but in the first shower of rain they disintergrated as they were made of cardboard.
As I was going to a new school where black shoes were required, she tried to cover my old brown shoes in black polish. It did
not work for long. My new school uniform was made from mum's grey flannel dress, which was dyed Navy. The light blue collar
and cuffs were cut from an old summer dress of mine. Fortunately, the grey flannel shrank in the dying, and it fitted me quite well.

NEW ARRIVALS AND THE BEG1NING OF THE END

The Americans arrived in Bristol. They went buzzing around the City in their funny little Jeeps. I remember thinking what nice
uniforms they had, and yes, they came to our parties too. The G.I鈥檚 were pursued by children chanting "Got any gum chum".
Personally I asked for sweets, which they always seemed to have with them. The older girls got nylon stockings. But it wasn鈥檛 all sweetness and light. There were terrible fights between black and white Americans in the city centre. The
Americans I met were always very polite and called my mother "Maam". They also helped with the washing up, which at that
time was a very disagreeable task as there were no detergents, and the grease floated on the top of the water, clinging to your hands. The Americans brought us steaks, the like of which we hadn't seen for years. Then, all of a sudden, the Americans
vanished.

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