A Moment from The Past
Memories of a Resident
My late Mum, Margaret Hecks who, in 1939 was an 8 year old resident at the convent known as the Saint Elizabeths Home, Redcatch Road, Bristol, Gloucestershire before her evacuation to Cornwall.
Mum did type up her memories of her evacuation to Cornwall but unfortunately there is only a small mention of her memories of the convent. I've copied it below in italics.
Wearing veils, our Sunday dresses and Clarks’ leather sandals with short white socks on Easter church processions; we cast delicate rose petals from our baskets on garden route to Church and to the accompaniment of angelic voiced Sisters, is an early musical memory.
The nuns arranged themselves in their waxed carved pews, stiff Wimples wobbling to the accompaniment of their dulcet hymns wafting towards the beautiful, stained-glass church windows –idyllic music I hear 70 years hence. I thought Father’s creaking voice spoiled it. Interrupting our dancing lesson in the playroom from the wooden wireless high over the toy cupboard, rumbled the voice of Chamberlain: “and I have to tell you that no such . . . has been received . . . . . . . and today we are at war with Germany”. With no concept of radio transmissions, my imagination visualized tiny creatures like the ‘Borrowers’ inhabiting the shiny vibrating wireless. Wonder if we will see live horsemen galloping in the gardens?
“Yes,” explained Sister Etheldreda, “We shall have to be prepared”. Three unpleasant preparations followed in swift succession.
The first was FIRE DRILL. A gigantic canvas chute was hoisted from inside the dormitory windows on the fifth floor and shooting down into the gardens below. Terrified of heights, I nodded when given instructions to “Cross your arms and keep your hands tightly on opposite shoulders until you reach the bottom” as I was lifted into the yawning aperture with no visible bottom. Petrified I tried to halt my hurtling descent and ended up in the infirmary with burnt elbows and hysteria. “Nothing like a slide - more like the catholic hell we are constantly threatened with”: I thought. Second preparation was the individual fitting of GAS MASKS: nauseating enough to induce vomiting to which I was prone. Those revoltingly stinking. rubber contraptions we had to wear in a cardboard box on a tape around our necks. I learned to swing mine round to my back. THIRD PREPARATION was ‘packing’: very exciting because it involved brand new clothes . . . 3 of everything except for shoes. Grandfather had tailored a blue Harris Tweed double-breasted overcoat with brown round knobbly leather buttons. In the Dorm, a suitcase on each bed was checked and we were told how to wear lots of layers which couldn’t fit into the tiny case. Name tapes were sewn on top clothes and I wrote my own name on the gas-mask box. My Mum recalls being evacuated via Temple Meads Station being utterly bewildered, overdressed and faint with heat. I've attached a historic photo I found of child evacuees in Bristol in 1941
I've also attached a photo of the 1939 Register (it was like a census taken across the country for war preparations) for the Convent's occupants. The blacked out entries are for those still living but you can see the entry for my Mum and the staff and their roles at that time including the the nun called Sister Etheldreda (sister in charge) mentioned by my Mum above.
I do hope what little I have to share is of interest to you kind regards, Jacky