Marion's tells us about her experiences in the first Bristol Blitz

On Saturday, November 23, 1940, Mum said we were off down to Castle Street to pay off the balance on our Christmas presents.

I knew all about mine that year because I had seen it in the shop already and begged for it the moment I saw it.

A beautiful tartan sewing case with attaché handles, it contained everything a child could possible want to start knitting and sewing.

It had several pairs of knitting needles and skeins of wool, sewing needles and colourful reels of cotton, a crochet needle, scissors and a darning needle.

I hoped I might get an annual as well from Gran, or my Auntie and Uncle, but I loved my sewing box.

I knew Gran would soon help me with it as she and mum were always knitting or sewing.

While we were in the shop I begged Mum to take it home that very day.

At first she demurred but eventually agreed, perhaps because she didn’t want to come back again before Christmas.

But then she said to me, “You won’t see it again before Christmas, Marie”

Well, if we had waited we would never have seen any of the presents again.

On Sunday evening, at gone six o’clock, the Blitz started and most of what had been the Castle Street shopping area - along with the historic Dutch house and several ancient churches and homes - was destroyed in a furious Luftwaffe bombing raid.

When the sirens started we were in the living room by the fire having just had finished our tea.

Dad quickly marshalled us down to our Anderson shelter, which was freezing cold, and there we were to stay for the next six hours huddled up together trying to keep warm.

Peering out of the shelter at a lit up sky we could smell the smoke and hear the bombs dropping.

I was so frightened - I thought it would never end.

When we are young we think our parents are wise and know how to take charge of things so it was a shock to realise that some times even they are powerless.

None of us could have foreseen how bad it would be although by now our parents must have had a good idea by what other cities had to endure.

The raid went on and on until about midnight.

I couldn’t have, at eight years old, put it into words but looking back it was a truly terrifying, incomprehensible experience and by the time the raid was over we must have been exhausted.

How brave our parents were to try so hard to hide their fear.

Dad was a fire watcher and once we were safely in our shelter he kept going out to see what was happening and then coming back to make sure we were all right, quickly making us all a hot drink and bringing it down.

Finally the all clear went and, long past all our bedtimes, we came back into the house.

As we were frozen Mum made us all a cup of cocoa and then we went off to bed clutching lovely hot water bottles.

I don’t know how much the papers were allowed to reveal but Dad, of course, was still working as a coster monger and when he came home the next day he told us how bad everything was.

Mum and Gran were shocked when he told us what had been destroyed.

I didn’t recognise the names of all the streets but I knew one of them was where we had been the previous day and since then, of, course, I have seen photos of the bombing.

Even more shocking was the number of people killed and injured.

Some of them, according to Dad, had to be dug out of the debris.

Bristol had to endure five more major Blitzes - and several more air raids not categorised as such - right up the very last one in May 1944.

The sheer horror of war is revealed by the number of innocent people who were killed and injured.

Apart from the odd occasion we did not use our Anderson shelter again but went instead to one in the grounds of Connaught Road school.

What a pantomime that turned out to be. Even in wartime there was sometimes humou