'I'll Keep My Socks On': Bombing Raid on Bristol

“I’ll keep my socks on in case we have to go to the shelter” I said to my mother, on the evening of 24 November 1940.

What a premonition that turned out to be. We had mattresses on the floor of the living room of our three-storey Victorian terrace house. Number 3 Redcliffe Mead Lane was one of a dozen houses for resident firemen and their families at Mardons, Son and Hall, Bristol. They were the printers for Imperial Tobacco. The houses, necessarily, were right in the middle of the factory complex. So when the factories were hit by incendaries and high explosive bombs, we were surrounded by fire. The night sky was red all around us, as far as the eye could see.

I learned later, much later, that a news report the next day simply said “a town in the west was bombed”. Apparently, it was thought that the already frightened public would become even more depressed if this city, which was thought to be unreachable by Nazi bombers, was shown to be vulnerable. Indeed much of the BBC had been moved to Bristol for supposed safety.

It was 6:26pm on that Sunday evening when the sirens wailed. My father was already away firefighting on the far side of the site. The remainder of the family comprised my mother, elder sister aged 9, self aged 7, younger sister aged 5, and three month old Geraldine. We didn’t move at first. I think we may have been a bit blase about bombs already by then. Or it may have been the dilemma of my mother not knowing whether to try to run to the shelter with three young children, and a three-month old baby. In the end our absence from the firm’s air raid shelter was noticed and two wardens came to fetch us.

I have no idea what my sisters were wearing. I put my overcoat over my pyjamas and ran, as directed, in my socks. The baby was put in a wicker wash basket (carry-cots had not been invented yet). We went to No.28 shelter, a place that was later to become home.

After we had been in No.28 for a time, it was decided that the shelter was not strong enough for the type of bombs then falling, and that we should go to the deep shelter in the bowels of No.15 factory. We set off through No.8 factory and at the junction with No.5 factory, we had to wait between two sets of fire doors. As the door from No.8 was being closed, there was a flash and a bang, followed by a sheet of flame, and No.8 was on fire. We then moved on through No.5, into No.15, and down the stairs into the deep shelter there.

The raid continued with ever-louder bomb blasts going on and on, interspersed by Purdown Percy (a huge anti-aircraft gun), which was as loud as many of the bombs. The Chief Fire Officer’s wife tried to get us to lie down and get some sleep, but lying down seemed to me to be adding to the risk of being buried alive.

At sometime in the early hours, a massive thud shook the building. I was sitting opposite a massive stanchion (vertical girder). My recollection is that it was about 18” x 12” in section. It shook like it was made of jelly, but fortunately withstood the impact. All this was followed by the noise of machinery and masonry falling above us.

To say it was frightening would be a huge understatement.

After what seemed an interminable time, the ARP Wardens decided we should get out. Presumably they had been checking that it was possible to do so, and where we might go next. The raid was still in full fury. We moved up the stairs to ground level. At the exit we were told to run up the street into No.24 shelter. My sisters and I did as instructed just as the whine of a huge bomb could be heard. We got to No.24 and the doors were slammed behind us. A huge explosion followed the blast. Our mother and baby sister were not with us. Our hearts sank. In fact our mother had experienced the opposite but equally alarming prospect of being prevented from following us. We thought we had lost our mother and her baby; she thought she had lost her three older children. After what seemed an age, we were reunited.

No.24 was next to the Scruff Mill. You would call it a recycling depot nowadays. It took all the off-cuts of paper and baled it to send away for pulping. It was now on fire and the wall dividing the shelter from it was quite literally getting red hot. We were off again. Once more we ran up the road. The raid was over but there were still fires and collapsing buildings. On reaching No.26 shelter, at about 4:00am, we settled down and fell asleep through sheer exhaustion.

When we woke, we saw our father on a stretcher. We thought he was dead. He was not, but he had been badly burned when a fire pump exploded as it was being topped up with petrol. As we went through the barrier holding back the crowds who had come to look for relatives, my mother’s sister and brother were waiting. My mother burst into tears, saying “we have lost everything”. “No you haven’t” said my aunt, “you are all still alive”.

I was still walking around in my socks!

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