When war broke out 70 years ago David Lindsay was just a youngster. Here are his memories.

On Sunday September 3, 1939, I was exactly six and a half.

On that day my parents, brother and I were visiting my grandparents who were on holiday in a flat overlooking the promenade at Weston-super-Mare.

I vaguely remember us gathering around the radio to hear Neville Chamberlain's announcement that we were now at war with Germany.

The following day I was due to transfer from Downend infants to juniors but there was a notice outside the school which read "The commencement of term has been postponed from September, 4 to September, 18 owing to the use of the school for the issue of gas masks".

We were also issued with identity cards - the adults' being an oatmeal colour and the childrens' blue.

My number was OCGA 195/3.

My parents had discs made with this information on so that if, during the war, we were separated we would be able to be identified.

Mine was on a silver wristband (which I still have) and my brother's, being age only two, was on a necklace.

Workmen had been busy that summer with half of the school playground taken up and underground shelters built.

At the sound of the air raid siren classes would file out and take their allocated places in the shelters.

In case of a prolonged stay underground each class was given a large tin of biscuits

Others things related to wartime were also happening.

Many people were installing Morrison or Anderson air raid shelters in their gardens - night time accommodation for many families as the air raids continued.

In our house, however, a clothes cupboard was strengthened for my brother and I to sleep in.

Men with acetylene torches went round the district removing iron railings and chain link fencing for use in the production of tanks and aeroplanes.

For many years afterwards the rusted one inch stumps were visible in many houses.

Other preparations including the creation of holes at the junction of Westerleigh Road and Badminton Road which were then covered with steel plates.

We were told that girders would be inserted here to slow down enemy tanks.

Our family lived at Badminton Road, on the Yate side of its junction with Oakdale Road.

Opposite a house known as "the cube" a couple of thick wall-like structures were erected.

Again we were told that, in the event of an invasion, these would be used as defence.

But the only practical use to which they were put was when the children of the district climbed on them to wave to Queen Mary.

She was then living at Badminton with the Duke of Beaufort and making frequent trips into the city to give encouragement to people whose homes had been bombed.

The air raid siren, situated above Broadribb's garage, at the junction of Badminton Road and Cleeve Hill, could easily be heard around the whole district.

But with a crop of barrage balloons around the BAC Filton works going up even before it sounded we had, from our house anyway, an even earlier indication of approaching raids.

I can still recall standing in our back garden on a clear, sunny day in September 1940, watching the dog fights as the RAF fought off the Luftwaffe bombers attacking the works.

The first big raid on Bristol took place in November,1940.

I remember getting ready for bed as the anti-aircraft guns opened up.

There was one on Purdown (nicknamed "Purdown Pete") and another one in Mangotsfield.

The noise was horrendous and many areas of Bristol were hit.

No bombs were ever dropped on Downend but each morning we children were on the lookout for pieces of shrapnel lying in the road which we could collect on our way to school.

Each morning after the raids we would wake to horrendous fires lighting up the sky over Bristol and Avonmouth.

Soon after the first raid a billeting officer arrived in Downend looking to place people who had been made homeless in places such as Knowle West, which had suffered badly in the bombing.

My parents, and my grandparents, who lived next door, took in couples who were in that situation and who stayed for many months.

August 28, 1942, was a Friday.

We had returned to school for the autumn term on the previous Monday.

(In those days the August bank holiday weekend was the first weekend of the month)

We had no sooner assembled when the air raid sirens sounded and we filed out to the shelters, no doubt clutching our tin of biscuits.

It was a clear summer's day and I remember looking up at the sky and seeing the sun reflecting on an aeroplane surrounded by puffs of gunfire smoke which, unfortunately, did not hit it.

It was that very aircraft that deposited its bombs on three buses in Broad Weir, near the city centre, killing 46 people - the worse single incident in Bristol during the whole war.

The year 1943 saw some hopeful signs.

One weekend, while a major exercise took place in preparation for the attack on Europe, we were all warned to keep in our respective homes.

We suddenly found soldiers swarming all over our gardens and roads while they practiced for urban warfare.

There were also campaigns, such as "Wings For Victory," organised to help the war effort.

We had parades through the streets accompanied by collecting boxes with a party held in Page Park to wind up the day.

In the early months of 1944 there was much evidence of troop movements.

Long convoys were being dispersed - presumably for D-Day - down to West Country ports, and as the traffic approached Bristol it tended to rest up on Badminton Road.

As soon as a convoy came to a halt everybody would throw open their doors and provide tea, sandwiches, cakes etc. for the troops, a gesture which was much appreciated.

On the night of June 5/6, 1944, my grandmother's lodger was taken ill and my father dispatched to find a doctor.

When he returned he said that he didn't know what was going on but the sky was "full of aeroplanes".

This was the invasion of Europe and it put an end to Downend's direct involvement with the war.

Peace in Europe (VE Day) was declared on May 8, 1945, and over the following few days street parties were held in celebration.

Ours took place in Badminton Road.