Written by Kathleen Mary Lowe (nee Moss) in 2007, in preparation for a visit to the RUH school in Bath. Pupils there were studying life during the War.
Notes in [brackets] have been added later to give context and further information.
My mother [Dorothy Agnes Moss nee Burrell]) and I had been staying with her cousin who lived about 20 miles away from our home [2 Glen Park, Eastville, Bristol]. Suddenly everyone seemed to be talking all at once. I didn't know what was going on but I new it was something serious. The next thing I remember was being dragged along the street towards the railway station. There was a thunderstorm going on. It was noisy. I was frightened. I was just 7 years old. I asked my mother what war would be like. She said there would be a lot of noise lounder than the thunder that was crashing around us that day. How right she was,
During the next few weeks life seemed to go on much the same. The grown up people seemd to talk endlessly about war but I didn't understand it.
In November 1939, two months after war had been declared, we moved to a new house (in Abingdon Road, Fishponds). It was then that things started to happen.
A strange thing called an Anderson shelter was put in our garden. It was made of corrugated steel., sunk in the ground to half its height and the top was covered with about 2 feet of earth. This we were told is where you go during air raids. It was dark and damp and not nice. In the end I spent very little time in our shelter during air raids, but we spent many nights in another Anderson shelter a couple of hundred yards down the road. This one was in my Auntie Doris's garden.
We spent hours sticking strips of paper on our windows. This we were told would help to stop the glass shattering if a bomb fell nearby. At school we were shown how to get quickly but calmly to the air raid shelters. If a raid started suddenly and there was no time to get to the shelter we practised how to "Take Cover" under the desks.
In January 1940 we had a happy event in the family. Auntie Doris had a baby boy, C____. She already had one son Brian who was four years older than me. When C____ arrived I really didn't want to go to school any more. I would happily have stayed home and looked after him but it was not allowed. Auntie Doris's husband Uncle Ron was not there very often. He was a fireman on a stam engine, the man who shovelled the coal. As time went on we saw even less of him as the trains carried high explosives (bombs and shells), they would hide the train in railway tunnels during raids.
In May 1940 the news came about Dunkirk. This was a tragedy when British troops invaded France and it went wrong. The men had to be got out but it was not easy. We had a message from our relatives in Manchester to say two of our cousins George and Reg [Moss] were among these troops. Hundreds of small boats were used to ferry men back to England. They were taken to parks in different cities where camps were set up to let them rest. Some came to Eastville Park near us. Uncle Ron, Brian and I went ot see if we could find George and Reg. We walked around for a long time talking to the soldiers, they looked terribly tired and dirty. We did not find our cousins but heard a few days later that they were safe. George had ridden a bicycle with no tyres or brakes to get to the coast. Reg and his friends had found horses and ridden them some of the way. Then when he arrived at the coast he found a rowing boat and ferried some men out to the waiting ships. He went back for more but the rowing boat overturned. We were all so happy they had come home. Before the war ended they were both to see action again, George in Africa and the Far East.
Meanwhile we used to visit my grandmother and aunties at Eastville. Auntie Elsie was not home very often. She had an important job at the docks. I never discovered qite what it was but I know she sometimes went on ships until they left territorial waters. Then she climbed down a rope ladder into a little boat to get back. When she finished work she often went to a Bristol hospital where she put on her Red Cross uniform and did a few hours voluntary nursing. Uncle George her brother lived in Taunton with his wife Edith. He was a commercial traveller (rep) for a tobacco company. Because of his job he had a car, there were very few cars then. When war started the authorities found out he had been trained as an engineer. He found himself conscripted to work in the aircraft factory in Gloucester. Auntie Edith decided if he was going there she would go too. They rented a couple of rooms and stayed there until the war ended. During this time Auntie Edith found a job in the Bon Marche. It had been a department store but had been taken over and was a packing centre. Auntie Edith spent the war packing food parcels for the troops.
During this time all sorts of changes were being made to the countryside. All sign posts were taken down to confuse the enemy so if you didn't know your way it was just bad luck. All unnecessary lights were put out. Street lights were hooded and really not much use. All houses and buildings had to be "Blacked Out". Dark curtains or shutters used so that no light could be seen from the outside. My mother was kept busy as she had a sewing machine and was always being asked to make curtains. Rationing started and almost everything you needed to buy was rationed at one time or other. Fresh fruit and vegetables were not rathioned but were in very short supply. People were urged to Dig for Victory! Dig up their flower gardens etc to grow food. Coal, the major fuel for heating houses then was rationed.
Mr Day, our neighbour, on leave from the Air Force decided to build a hen house in the garden. He had visions of lovely fresh eggs. Only Mr Day was no DIY expert. He somehow nailed himself inside. His wife eventually heard him shouting to be let out. She called the neighbours to see their new "chicken", they were all helpless with laughter but in the end they got him out by taking the roof off.
By July we were getting some air raids but not a lot of damage was done in the city. It was at this time I realised my father was very ill. He had been in hospital a couple of times but when he came home I thought he was alright. August 12th was my 8th birthday. My Mum said Dad was too ill for me to have friends in the house but she arranged a little party in the garden. Four days later my father died. After this we spent a lot of time with Auntie Doris and family. I was quite happy about this as Brian and I got on well and played with each others' toys. It helped Mum to be with her sister-in-law.
My mother was given a widow's pension. This amounted to 15 shillings (75p) a week. At that time our house rent was 12 shillings and 6 pence. Mum had to get work. Grandpa Moss said he would get her a job at the Aircraft Company [at Filton] as he worked there. I don't think my mother was really ready to start a job, but one morning [September 25, 1940] she set off. As she could use a sewing machine they put her in the fabric department. To waterproof the fabric they used a chemical known as dope [a kind of lacquer]. It smelt awful and gave off fumes that made your eyes run. By lunchtime Mum had decided she could not do this job, She was going home. As she was leaving she talked to one of the girls and told her she was going. the girl tried to persuade her to have lunch first. When they got to the door the sirens went, the girl said to come with her, everyone was heading for the shelter. My mum would not go, there was a bus pulling out and she got on it and came home. We heard later in the day that the shelter at the aircraft works had been bombed. It was a large bomb, I don't think there were any survivors. The bombing had really started.
From then on we had sporadic raids. In November we had some of the worst raids of the war. On the night of the 24th the city centre was altered for ever. The shopping centre, many offices and public buildings were flattened or burned out. The next morning all there was left was smoking ruins. St Peter's church, although just a shell, still stood and is still there today, left just as it was as a memorial. We were not allowed to go into the town for some time so only knew what had happened from pictures.
Although we had not television and at times no radio I didn't miss them, as we had other entertainments. Most weeks we went to the cinema, this was our favourite entertainment in those days. Bristol had about 40 cinemas so there was a good choice. The theatres kept going and there were musicals, variety shows and pantomimes. Food was short and not much variety but I can't remember ever being really hungry. My mother was a good manager, we as children did miss sweet things. We experimented with different sandwich fillings using what was available. Condensed milk was one filling which was popular. I can't remember the others. Bananas were not seen until after the war finished and were quite a novelty when we saw the first ones. Ice cream was another thing that disappeared for years.
We continued to have air raids, mostly at night. A lot of people just slept in the air raid shelters every night, others went to bed and hoped for the best. If the air raid warning sounded they would then get up and go to the shelter. Early in 1941 we heard people talking about evacuation. This meant the children were taken out of the cities where the bombing was really bad and sent to live with foster parents in the country. Brian my cousin and I were told we would be going and asked if we would like to go together. Brian by this time was 12 years old and didn't really like girls, he wanted to go with his school friends. I didn't know what it was all about so didn't have any idea what to expect. In May we were taken to the railway station and off we went. We had no idea where we were going or when we would see our parents again. As it happened we only went about 40 miles [to Taunton]. When we got off the train we all went into a large building, we were given a drink and a bun then we had to be seen by a doctor. I never found out why because I felt fine but I was sent to an isolation hospital. I was kept there for 10 days and was not happy. Then a lady came with a car and took me to a house in the country [Creech St Michael]. My foster parents were Mr and Mrs Counsel, they were really nice. They had a little girl called Pat, seh was just a bit younger than me, we shared a big bed and had very few arguments. Also living in the house were 2 boys, John (Pat's brother) and George who was also being fostered. I went to a lovely little village school. I don't think I learned very much but I enjoyed it. So we spent the summer playing in the fields and was all very peaceful. lBut I did miss home. In August it was my 9th birthday. My mum came to see me for the day and when it was time for her to go home I wanted to go with her. I stayed another week and then my mum came and fetched me home. Bristol was much as I left it except there were more bombed houses.
So it was back to school in September, most of the evacuees seemed to have returned home. We were still getting air raids but less often. Shortages of almost everything continued. The worst was of course food. I never remember being very hungry it was the lack of variety which was hard to take. The winters were very cold and coal was rationed.
One day we were coming home from school and we couldn't believe our eyes. There were strange army lorries coming down the road. They came one after the other in all I believe about 70 of them. The Americans had arrived! They set up camp nearby and for a while became part of our lives. Most of them were very friendly and liked children. Very few children had fathers at home so really enjoyed the Americans playing rounders with them and teaching them how to play baseball. One morning the Americans had gone, there was no warning, no goodbyes, just gone. The air raids had more or less stopped, the obvious signs of war were there, the bombed buildings etc. They would remain for years, even when the war ended the priority was to build new houses, the wreckage of the old ones could wait.
In 1944 our troops invaded France. They were not alone of course, with them were the Americans and lots of others like Australians and Canadians. After a while the news started to get better and people seemed to be feeling better. I think this war partly because the end of the war was in sight and also because they were getting more sleep. I often wonder how people managed to work all day and then spend hours fire watching or working in hospitals etc.
In May 1945 the great day arrived. To me it seemed to come suddenly. There had been talk about it but when the day arrived it was almost unbelievable. It was great, there was dancing in the strets. In the evening just as it was getting dark, Brian and I went to the top of Cossham Hill near here. We looked out over the city and there were bonfires everywhere, it was a wonderful sight. We had been forbidden to show a light for 6 years, now it didn't matter. The lights could come on again.
On the 8th of May 1995, exactly 50 years later I went to the same place, Cossham Hill in the evening. There were some bonfires and fireworks but it looked so different. It took a while for me to to realise it was it was the street lights - there were only a few dim and shaded ones in 1945. It was sad Brian was not with me as he was in 1945, he died in 1981.
