Thread: The War Years
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Old 9th February 2019, 15:46
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John Rogers United States John Rogers is offline
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Memories of the Bristol Blitz
John
I lived in Mardyke, Hotwells Road. My family had a cafe there. We used to have a group of Cockney dockers lodging with us. They came down to work at Bristol and Avonmouth docks after London was blitzed. That night some planes came over at about 6pm and dropped flares. The dockers knew what it was, they’d seen it in London, and they knew our Blitz was coming. It was quite hellish – it lasted about 6 hours. It started before the theaters opened. I looked up the town from where I lived and all I could see was a mass of flames.
Olive C
The whole of Bedminister Down was lit up by incendiary bombs. A house was bombed near by and all these bricks came into our house and through my bedroom ceiling. When the town was bombed we used to go onto the Bridgwater Road and watch the town - it was all lit up. We would watch the bombs and the anti aircraft fire.
John
The German planes came over and dropped flares first then incendiaries to get things going.
Rhoda
The first Sunday it was mostly incendiaries there were few bombs.
John
The fire brigade concentrated on putting out houses. They let the shops burn.
Doris
I got off a tram from Westbury-on-Trym. I was going out. I spent all night sheltering in the crypt of the Quakers Meeting House. I watched Barton Warehouse collapse. All Old Market was gone. The next morning I remember walking over all these barrage balloon wires that were lying on the ground. It was very frightening.


Rhoda
I was going to a Show at the Kings Theater that night. We were having coffee in a place opposite St Peter’s church. I saw a parachute thing all alight coming down. There were some soldiers in the cafe they told us to get to a shelter. They’d been in the Blitz in Coventry two days before so they knew what was coming. We tried to get into the Castle Street shelter but couldn’t because it was locked and nobody had the key. We went to a shelter in St James instead. It was brick built and had a blast wall. We looked out and it was like an inferno. Everything was alight. As soon as the all clear went we came out and walked home. There were walls and pieces of wood falling all around us. The firemen were putting fires out.
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