...definitely the last picture for the Downs Wildlife book; this one accompanies my two-page romp through 350 million years of history, and is based upon Geraldine remembering having heard someone talking about the war years:
...More recently, troops were stationed here during both world wars, and the Second World War saw the erection of stone obstacles to prevent the landing of enemy aircraft, the tethering of barrage balloons, and the positioning of an anti-aircraft battery at the Dumps. With the arrival of American troops, the Downs were used as a vehicle assembly area in readiness for D Day, and wild flowers flourished between tanks in this temporary respite from mowing.
I asked my landlady, who lived in this very house during the war, if she could confirm that tanks were there; she wrote down her recollections of Bristol in the Blitz, and told me that an incendiary had come through my kitchen ceiling. I looked at the kitchen floor and imagined a German incendiary bomb sitting there fizzing but failing to go off. Gosh.
What a memory and they seemed to take it all in their stride.
ReplyDeleteMy mum used to look forwards to the air-raids because the neighbour who shared their shelter had a tin of toffees and she was allowed to have one. She was nearly 10 when the war finished
My Nan was almost hit by stray bullets from a plane when she was carrying her shopping home one evening! I can't imagine..
ReplyDeleteI think if some of the last few generations had had to live through that, they'd be a bit less war-crazy, and a bit more into finding peaceful solutions for things.
They did, Anji. My landlady said that when the AA battery on the Downs opened up, the whole house shook. And I met someone once who said that, the night the centre of Bristol was destroyed, he was in Birmingham and could see the light of the fires from there.
ReplyDeleteAn account of the Bristol Blitz described a bomber flying low and machine-gunning people on the ground, Chandira. Somehow it seems even nastier and more vindictively personal than dropping blinking great bombs.
I sometimes think that the aggression I sometimes encounter on the roads would be better channeled into a career in the Army. Maybe the police could issue call-ups instead of penalty points...