Gordon Richard Sydney Haines war time memories

I was born in Almondsbury Hospital South Gloucestershire on 23 December, 1932. My parents Florence Mabel HAINES and Sydney George HAINES then lived at Box Tree Cottage in the Village of Alveston, Gloucestershire with my sister Jean, two years older than me and my Grandfather, William Ballinger, Mum’s father. Life at home was pleasant; the village was then small and uncomplicated. An outside bucket toilet, no running water, we had our own well with a small pump, no electricity, we used oil lamps and had a coal-burning indoor stove which also provided hot water for the Saturday night bath ! We grew all our own vegetables and had apple and plum trees, raspberry and gooseberry bushes for all our fruit. The fields around provided us with blackberries and mushrooms and there was a small forest named Wolfridge, where the housing estates now exist, providing firewood and adventures for the village boys.

My primary education was at the Church of England Elementary School at Rudgeway a mile away over the fields from Alveston but aged 10 I transferred to Thornbury Council School where I took the examination for entry to Thornbury Grammar School on a local council scholarship, at age 11 in 1943 and in September that year began my secondary education. My sister Jean was also studying there. My earliest recollection of doing something as a family was the requirement at the outbreak of war in 1939 for everyone to register at the local council office (opposite the Cross Hands Hotel !) to be fitted for Gas Masks. When they were issued my Grandfather stated firmly that he would ‘never put the damned things on’. I remember that parents with young children were given a full body-covering suit. As the war progressed we were given extra filters to put over the masks, presumably to counter new gases discovered to be in use by the enemy (ie the Germans!)

From 1941 to 1944 German bombers could be seen and heard passing overhead on their way to raid British midland cities of Birmingham and Coventry and on the return, if they had been damaged or suffered engine failure they would get rid of unused bombs over the open country around home. Mum’s sister, Aunty Sis (Mary) and her family would regularly come out by bus from Bristol, some 11 miles away and stay overnight to escape the bombing raids on Bristol which so seriously damaged that old historic port city. Sis’s husband, Harry Clarke was a bus driver who continued driving his passengers during the worst of the blitz. The sirens wailed out their warning that enemy aircraft were overhead and with all the Bristol family present suddenly there was an explosion in the cupboard area. Panic all round until we found out it was one of Mum’s potent Elderflower champagne bottled having burst its cork. The sound of the ‘all clear’ meant we could then go to sleep. Most village kids collected ‘shrapnel’ (pieces of bombs and shells that fell on to roads and roofs during air-raids), and other collectibles were there for the looking, including fins of small incendiary bombs.

Aunty Sis’s son Don Clarke was a professional soccer player who was a top- scoring centre forward for Bristol City during the post war years. Don’s son Brian was also a professional soccer player for Cardiff City in the 60’s. Another of mother’s brothers, Fred, a bus driver in Bristol was regularly on the Bristol – Alveston –Thornbury run. If he knew that Bristol was being raided he would bring his double decker bus and park it outside the house and come in with any passengers that happened to there.

At that time, Dad had joined what was initially called the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV) later to be known as the Home Guard (Dad’s Army). Dad was too old to be called up for the armed forces in WW2 but had served in WW1 in the 51st Highland Division, The Gordon Highlanders, a Scottish Regiment, in the Middle East. I was named after Dad’s old regiment. For the first year none of the Alveston platoon had any weapons apart from rabbiting shotguns and farming implements used by the farm workers. Dad would often be sent on top of the water tower overlooking Thornbury apparently to watch out for German parachutists, armed with a pitch-fork !

For us kids it was an exciting time, we knew from the sound of the engines and the shapes of all aircraft, which ones were “ours” and which were “theirs”. There were many RAF airfields in Gloucestershire, the nearest being at Filton about 8 miles away. This was the target for German air-raids on several occasions. During one of these raids, I was home very ill with Scarlet Fever (somewhat less fatal than Typhoid) and confined in the upstairs bedroom quarantined from all- comers. I was able to see the German dive-bombers attacking the airfield at Filton.

I also recall very well the return of the remnants of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) having been pulled off the beaches of Dunkirk in June 1940. A number of them were brought to Alveston (and presumably all other villages around) and put in tents on the village soccer pitch. Families went to visit them with food and drink and I remember being given a bar of chocolate (unheard of then) which had been soaked in sea-water. It still tasted good. The army took over an old country house about a mile from Alveston and one of Mum’s brother (Eddie Ballinger from Edinburgh) was posted there. He managed to get hold of an army bicycle and was a regular visitor home, especially at meal times.

One day during the spring of 1945 I was cycling back home from school around 5 pm after cross country running practice. Coming up Thornbury Hill (Alveston Hill if you lived in Thornbury!) I noticed smoke and fire coming from an area near Alveston Square and clearly close to home. On arrival home, soldiers, police and firemen were all around. An RAF Mustang fighter had crashed about 300 yards from Mum’s house and was burning in the garden of old Postman Harry Collins cottage. I walked over to have a close look and saw the pilot’s body being carried out. Apparently he had engine failure but managed to keep the plane from crashing directly into the Collins cottage. However he did clip the roof and take off some tiles. This pilot and several others who had crashed during the war near the village were buried in St Helens Church graveyard. Old Ma Collins was inside her cottage asleep at the time and knew nothing of this! The end of the war in Europe was the occasion for Village tea parties with a bon-fire. We did not need fireworks after 5 years of war !

I was a regular visitor at this time to Mumbley’s Farm owned by the King family. John King was a great mate and it was good news to hear that he had also passed the Grammar School exam and would be in the same class as me. He was very clever at Maths and often helped me with my homework. I also learned to drive a tractor, make hay, drink cider and milk and feed the cows with John. The rabbits I regularly brought home were welcome additions to the family larder during those days of strict rationing. Dad had been working at Col. C.E. Turner’s mansion at Oldown, about a mile and a half bike ride away. In the dark of winter and made worse by the official ‘black-out’, Dad had to light up his acetylene light to find his way in the lanes leading to Oldown House in all winds and weather.

My Grandfather, William Ballinger was still alive then. This made a total of 5 in the family with a total income of some 5 pounds a week to live on. Grandad has his old age pension of about 10 shillings a week and he received 5 shillings a week rent for the other half of the house next door, occupied by an old woman, and later a Mr & Mrs Gilbert Collins. To supplement the family income, during the summer we picked Blackberries and/or Mushrooms and sold them to a fruit and veg dealer who lived opposite St Helens Church in the village. When Dad was sent away for treatment for TB, Mum went out to work as a cleaner at the Ship Hotel, Alveston. These were the days before social services offered money or help to the elderly or the sick, lame & lazy

We did most of our shopping in Mrs English’s store in the village and were visited by mobile shops selling all sorts, from kerosene, meat and occasionally clothing. English’s bread when newly baked was unbeatable and famous around the district. Once a week they made ‘lardy-cakes’, very tasty and probably considered unhealthy nowadays, but well worth a sixpence. Our radio was powered by a ‘wet’ battery which was changed on a monthly basis from another visiting van. Milk was delivered at the door by the local farmer with thick yellow cream lying on the top of the bottles. It was necessary to collect the bottles soon after delivery or else the birds would be pecking at the foil to get at the cream ! I can just about remember the same farmer coming round the village houses in his horse and cart delivering milk from a churn. The kids of the village following the cart to pick up the horse droppings to be used in the gardens !

At Thornbury Grammar School, I followed the normal course with good average success and gained the Bristol School Certificate with credits in French, Maths, English Literature, Geography and History. I also took a years commercial course in Shorthand, Typewriting and Book-keeping. I learned to touch-type at this time which was so useful when I did specialist courses later on in the navy. I was a member of the School 1st Cricket XI, 1st Football XI and the 1st Rugby XV in 1948/49.

…..The progress of the war saw Dad sent on Government direction from his job at Oldown House where he was ‘Butler’ to work in an aircraft factory at Yate near to Bristol. There he was employed making turrets for bombers. He travelled to and fro in an old Austin 7 car driven by our eccentric Australian next door neighbour Mr James and Dad always has amusing tales of his journey especially in the black-out when the only lights allowed on a car were about 2 inches in diameter each side. One day he came home very excited – he had won a raffle and the prize was ONE BANANA. I had never seen one before and we all shared this banana with our Sunday tea when it was the occasion to have real butter on our bread – this was a piece about the size of the butter one is given with aircraft meals ! Dad also travelled sometimes on the rail line from Thornbury to Yate. Thornbury station was situated where the supermarket is at the top of the town. The train was of course a steamer and everyone was sorry to see this rail line abolished when the Socialist Government in UK reduced the rail system by about one half in the 1950’s.

In the mid-1940’s, Dad contracted TB and initially was sent to Weston-Super- Mare, a sea-side resort on the Bristol channel and later to Stonehouse in North Gloucestershire. Where he was treated in what was then called a Sanitorium, a special hospital for this disease where the only treatment at that time for TB was fresh air and plenty of milk. We visited him each week and found that Tony Gill a former school mate of mine was also a patient at Stonehouse. My sister Jean used to visit him at the same time as Dad and when he was cured several years later, he married her and they had a happy life together for many years. After the war ended the village of Alveston began to change. Sadly some of the local farmers sold their fields in and around the village for housing development and within 2 or 3 years the old village had disappeared and new housing estates took over the old mushroom fields and even Wolfridge was cut down and built over. One advantage of this development was that we now had piped water and electricity to all houses and also now had a small shopping centre where one of the village wells previously stood.