The opening lines to my memoir, Just a boy from Bristol. It started as a dream, many, many years ago. I promised my mother that I would, one day, write a book about it, and eventually I did.
1 Through the eyes of a child
On the 3rd September 1939 a war started that would not only change the course of history, it would also deny millions of children across the world the opportunity for a normal, happy childhood. I know, because I was one of them.
My father, who had spent the bulk of his adult life in the Royal Navy, re-enlisted as soon as the storm clouds of war started to gather over Europe. He left my mother alone, to bring up two young children, in poverty, and in what was becoming a scary, changing world.
My mother was an incredibly beautiful young woman, but she was emotionally fragile. She was an, unpredictable, free spirited, capricious butterfly, who was constantly fluttering around; she was never able to settle anywhere for long. In many ways she was totally unsuited to the task in hand, but she was a mother, and she did what mothers do best. She cared for me; she did it well, and I will be eternally grateful to her. Mum, I thank you for teaching me how to live and how to love. I thank you for the incredible journey, and I thank you for all the many wonderful memories.
I was only two when my father went off to war. I was far too young to have any memories of him. All that I had was a small, crumpled photograph, which showed him as a young man wearing football kit. He had scribbled a message on the back.
I won’t be long, don’t worry, because I will be lucky.
Joe
That photograph was to live behind the clock, on the mantle shelf of whichever house we were living in for the duration of the war. Whenever the going got too tough, which was often, Mum would take it down and read the message aloud to me. I think it was probably as much for her benefit as it was for mine.
My earliest memories are of the spring of 1940. I was still a few months short of my third birthday, but my memories, although few, are very clear. We were living like three rats, in a tiny ground floor flat in Badminton Road, St Paul’s. The house was right on the junction of Ashley Road, Lower Ashley Road and Sussex Place. I shared a double bed with my mother, and my baby sister Mary slept in her pushchair, under the window in the cramped living room area. I envied Mary’s ability to sleep. It would stand her in good stead later on when the German bombers flew over Bristol.
The actual fighting hadn’t reached Bristol yet, but the effects of the war certainly had. The strict rationing meant a shortage of food, and in our case, there was always a shortage of money. There were frequent trips to the pawn shop, and there were ration books, blackouts at night, gas masks to carry, and frequent air raid drills. Despite all this, life carried on remarkably normally. We all got by somehow, and we all survived. Whenever shops had food supplies, the rumours spread like wild fire and the housewives would queue for miles. I think in a funny sort of way, the women quite enjoyed those long queues, and they would gossip away contentedly as they waited for their turns.
My first, my best, and my only friend, was Mrs. Grant who lived across the road. Mrs. Grant was a formidable looking Irish woman. She was short, sturdy and permanently wore a flowered pinafore and a hairnet, which covered an army of rather vicious looking metal curlers. She may have been a woman, but she still had whiskers, warts and muscles. I had already decided if and when the Germans ever invaded Badminton Road, I would hide behind Mrs. Grant. Those curlers would be more than a match for anything the Germans could throw at us.
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