Different times Bulldog spirit got us through it
WHAT a superb photo of an Anderson Shelter! (BT November 24). Exactly as I remember them, sand bags a plenty and even ‘grass sods’ on the roof.
More’s the pity that wasn’t available when that series in the letters section about air raid shelters were hot news. They went on to talk about what kids did to entertain themselves with some of the debris left from those terrible times, and the construction concerned really does closely resemble what we were trying to achieve our ‘dens’.
Today’s youth has every piece of expensive technology close to hand and would readily take a photo of their creation, but only one member or our gang had an old Box Brownie to hand, suitably nicked from his mother’s dressing table drawer ... trouble was, there was no film in it!
I suppose being a bit of an ‘oldie’ eight decades on makes you appreciate how the internet and all its associated gadgetry has helped families and friends sort of “keep themselves together” during our various Covid lockdowns ... no such thing in those far-off days when we woke out next morning and ventured out into a street, only to find it not there anymore.
Just how we survived is hard to believe – ‘Winnie’ and that certain British Bulldog spirit that Boris seems to want us all to try and emulate.
And just what have we got ... greed and sheer selfishness, with seemingly nothing to either encourage or even make folk abide by the rules.
Is there no wonder it is taking Covid so long to be defeated after we’d virtually done so by September?
Regular BT reader by email
Fatal crash in the gorge
✒ I CAN well remember on February 3, 1957, a Vampire jet crashing near Pill after flying under the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Opinion was divided that the pilot died while undertaking a victory roll after flying under the bridge or whether being a windy day he got caught by the side wind as he cleared the Avon Gorge.
I was wondering whether there is a memorial marker on the spot where he crashed. Perhaps somebody who was living locally at the time and still lives there knows. There was a small landslide onto the track of a railway line as a result of the crash. Graham Best by email »
Editor’s reply: The tragedy in 1957 was when Flying Officer John Crossley of 501 Squadron based at Filton flew his De Havilland Vampire under the Suspension Bridge. Some years ago there was a debate in BT’s letters pages as to whether the crash was the result of pilot error or engine failure, with one reader writing in to say he clearly heard the engine change tone before the accident.
As far as we know, there is no memorial at the site, which is difficult to access anyway, but if anyone knows differently please tell us.
Roof garden reception
✒ THANK you for the wonderful article I read in Bristol Times (November 3).
I can remember when Lewis’s and Jones opened in 1957 – what wonderful stores they were!
Between 1961 and 1968, I worked in the accounts offices of Jones & Co and dealt with many credit accounts and hire purchase agreements and really enjoyed my time there.
At the time I was earning £12 a week, but in December 1968 met my future husband Dave and eventually we decided to get married.
Sadly, I left Jones to go to Telephone House where they were able to pay me £20 a week, so then we could save for our wedding and find a house, etc.
We married on September 5, 1970, and had our reception on the roof garden restaurant of Lewis’s. It was a very hot day, so we were glad of the garden facilities and of course the wonderful views over the city of Bristol.
A few years later we found out that ours was the last wedding reception to be held at Lewis’s.
Your write-up brought back such memories, as sadly my husband passed away in January 2019 after 48 years of very happy marriage, and it certainly meant a great deal to me.
Thank you for those memories. Janet Lea by email » Editor’s note: We are delighted to have been of service. We asked Mrs Lea to send us a photo of the reception, and as you can see, she was happy to oblige.
Goofers’ galleries
✒ FROM the early 1950s, the builders in Bristol were having a field day as all the streets around the Broadmead area were being developed into our new shopping area.
There was great excitement that Jones’s (“Bristol’s own Department Store”) would, at last, have a new central store again – having been bombed out of Wine Street on 24 November 1940, which resulted in them being dispersed to small stores in the city suburbs.
Then came the news of the arrival of a rival department store, Lewis’s. Being on neighbouring plots there was much anticipation about which store would be completed first.
If I remember correctly the public would strain every sinew to
watch progress on the two buildings over and around the hoardings. Eventually, “goofers’ galleries” were created on both sites to enable everyone to watch progress safely.
Initially, Lewis’s was designed to have two basement levels but I think they hit water level problems which meant some delays while a re-design was carried out.
A recent correspondent mentioned the Horsefair was built over; it was the Haymarket, a triangular piece of ground which gives the building its shape. The Horsefair thoroughfare stayed in use throughout all the construction projects, and of course is still being used today.
Lewis’s had an ornamental pond on its roof garden restaurant. I do not remember Jones’s having a public roof-top restaurant, but they did have a full silver service restaurant on the top floor.
Lewis’s Pageant restaurant was also full silver-service with its medieval mural covering the bullnosed end (overlooking Lewin’s Mead). The mural can still be seen to this day outside the John Lewis restaurant at Cribbs Causeway. I’m pleased they thought it was worth keeping.
Finally, I believe John Lewis Partnership took over from Lewis’s, they were followed by Bentall’s, House of Fraser, and now Primark.
I’ll be happy to be corrected on any of the above as it’s all written from memory.
Malcolm Coles Downend » Editor’s reply: Many thanks, Mr Coles. We never heard the splendid term “goofers’ galleries” before, and have memorised it for future use!
Fairfax House on screen
✒ MUM used to take our family of four kids to Lewis’s every Easter to see the lambs, chickens and ‘baby’ goats in the Lewis’s Easter Farm.
In fact it was the latter that got me into trouble with mum after my St John’s Primary School cap fell in with the goats. The cap was retrieved minus a chunk out of the peak.
Mum was not amused.
That was in the 1960s, but I also remember a film that had a scene in Fairfax House at around the same time, after a bit of research I found it. The film was A Day in the Death of Joe Egg which starred Alan Bates, Janet Suzman and Peter Bowles. It had a delayed release date of 1972.
Described as a “challenging film”, the story centres around a young girl who’s almost brain dead, and the ensuing break-up of her parents.
Most of the scenes are in Bristol and the one I remember clearly features Fairfax House and that store’s ‘Space Age Christmas Grotto’ that year.
The thing I recollect most was the woman piloting the children to see Father Christmas. She had the most brilliant Bristolian accent (rare for Radio Bristol, let alone a major film), and her “you can see Mars on your right and Jupiter on the left” was truly memorable.
It turns out that the actress playing her was local. Her name was Constance Chapman, born in Weston-Super-Mare, very active in the 1950s and 60s, she died in Bristol in 2002.
Apparently the last building in Britain that features a Fairfax House style ‘paternoster lift’ belongs to Sheffield School of Art. The building is now listed because of it (it starred in the really good recent Greg Davies BBC documentary on Kes).
Mark Steeds by email
Justice on board Appeal centenary
✒ IN answer to the question you were asking about the Lord Mayor’s coach (BT Picture of the Week, November 17), it was probably for the judge which was brought from Clifton to the courts via the Lord Mayor’s Chapel.
In those days the judge came to Bristol four times a year and it was called the Quarter Sessions. David Sheargold
by email » Editor’s reply: Many thanks, Mr Sheargold. We were wondering what the Lord Mayor’s coach, with driver and footman rigged out in splendid costumes, was doing outside the Chapel in November 1959, and a couple of other people suggested it was because of assizes or quarter sessions. These were criminal trials (later replaced by the Crown Court) and the opening of these proceedings was indeed carried out with a certain amount of pomp.
✒ THIS time next year, the Lord Mayor Children’s Christmas
Appeal (LMCA) will be 100 years old.
In celebrating the support that the appeal has provided throughout the century, the LMCA Committee is preparing a document describing the Appeal’s history.
We would like to include comments from anyone who remembers being a recipient. The appeal started life as the Lord Mayor’s Fund, which originally provided coupons and boots.
Please tell us your memories of receiving coupons or boots from the LMCA. We would love to hear what this meant to you.
Please send any information to M Reid (mereid2020@gmail.com or 14 Harley Court Harley Place, Clifton, BS8 3JU). Thank you in anticipation.
Bruce Simmonds Bristol » Editor’s note: See also Latimer’s Diary, page 8.
Decoys during the Blitz
✒ AS a child, my interests were in radio and later in television so I was pleased when my father obtained an apprenticeship for me at Colston Electric in Denmark Street.
At the time, after leaving school I was filling in time by doing a clerk’s job at Bristol Aircraft, so I experienced the Sepember 1940 air raid.
The essential works order was invoked to keep me at Bristol Aircraft with the offer of an apprenticeship in the tool room. When the
tool room shelter was hit by a bomb, many of the senior staff were killed and injured.
The need then was to recruit senior staff and the apprenticeship was withdrawn, allowing me to go to Colston Electric.
I started my apprenticeship on Monday, November 25, 1940, after the first major blitz on Bristol working on “decoy” sites in Bristol area and the South West for all of the winter months.
That morning the contracts manager Jock Dewer took me to the Whitchurch decoy, which was the only one operational at that time, to find it had not been used during the raid.
Communication to the decoy sites was from Army headquarters at Whiteladies Road via a dispatch rider and there was a report that such a rider had been killed in Bristol during the raid.
The decoy at Downside near Lulsgate airport was used very successfully for the second and third major raids.
Chew Magna decoy was used for the sixth raid and again collected many bombs.
Many factors were involved in the use of decoys with long protracted raids it would be difficult to involve a decoy without giving away location information.
Sadly if the loss of the dispatch rider was linked to the decoy not being used it was a double tragedy as many lives and property could have been involved, and saved. Frank Newbery
by email
» Editor’s reply: The decoy or ‘Starfish’ sites were supposed to confuse enemy raiders by using lights and fires to make them think that open fields were actually parts of Bristol where bombs had just fallen.
We have also read reports that the first one could not be used on November 24, 1940, due to the death of the messenger, but as Mr Newbery says there is no question that in later raids they attracted a lot of bombs which would otherwise have killed people.