A SIREN CITY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 226, 23 September 1940, Page 5

A SIREN CITY.

BRISTOL'S WAR FACE. AFTER ALL THE RAIDS. LONDON, August 30. I came to Bristol, writes G. Ward I*rice in the "Daily Mail," because I ■wanted to see for myself what the effects of the war, in the widest sense, have been upon some of our great provincial cities.

Bristol is one of the most important and exposed of these.

For a year it has shared the hardships of war with the rest of the country. For three months it has been the target of almost daily bombing attacks. Since the Germans conquered France and were able to set up air bases on her territory, Bristol has known few days without an air raid.

It would have seemed incredible, when the war began a year ago, that under such conditions the life of the city should go on with almost complete normality, and that it should be necessary to make close search for any sign of the insignificant damage that has been done.

In fact, if it were possible to strike a balance, I believe that Bristol is better off after a year of war than she was before it began. Against the anxiety which constant air raids bring, and the discomfort of spending parts of almost every night in shelters, can be set the increased prosperity which most of the city's industries enjoy, and the virtual disappearance of unemployment.

It is astounding that so much enemy effort has been directed against a city with so little effect. If one had been asked to take a map of Bristol and pick out the spots where the fall of bombs would do least damage, one could not have improved upon the actual German performance. The First Bomb. Only six fatal casualties have occurred in air raids, and not a single piece of important material damage has been done. „ j

The very first bomb that fell in the heart of the city dropped right in between three of the most important hospitals, which here stand close together —yet it demolished only a small corner- house, killing two people.

I drove along one of the main roads leading out of the city. A dozen bombs had dropped on one side or other, but all on the grass verges, so that the

roadway itself was not even obstructed.

Similarly where the great docks are employing thousands of men and preparing to take on thousands more, bombs have fallen by the score, but all in the river, on the tidal mud, on rub-bish-heaps, or on empty spaces, without having the slightest effect upon the work done there.

The dockers now carry on during raids, having passed through two previous frames of mind about them — the first in which they ran for shelter, and the second in which they climbed on to the roofs of buildings to watch the British fighters at work. Both anxiety and curiosity have now passed away; air raids have become for Bristol part of the regular routine of life. Its Newcomers. Similar immunity to that of the docks has prevailed in the case of the great super-power station, and at the Bristol aircraft works, which are the city's largest national industry. The most pronounced effect of the war in Bristol has been the great increase of population. The Lord Mayor, Alderman A. W. S. Burgess, estimates at many thousands the number of new residents in bis city. Being a neutral area, it has neither sent away its children nor received any, but the staff of the local aircraft works has Town enormously, and other organisations like King's College, London, have established large sections of their personnel in Bristol.

Accommodation for 4000 extra dockers has had to be found in the city, not all permanently established there, but drafted in from other ports when required. Bristol has an unusually wide range of industries besides aircraft building. Tobacco, printing and chocolate manufacturing, and the boot, clothing and woodworking trades each employ several thousand hands. Most of these have benefited from increased work and war bonuses.

The general prosperity, however, of; this great city of the south-west is best J

indicated by the fall in its unemployment figures, which dropped from 5924 on July 10, 1939, to 3575 on July 10 this year. This means that there are practically no unemployed at all, for since the war a considerable number of married women have signed on for war work at the Labour Exchanges and, while waiting for jobs, are included in the figures. Even more striking evidence of the city's wartime well being was quoted to me by the Lord Mayor. "Since January 1," he said, "our 400,000 people have subscribed four and a quarter million pounds for war savings of various kinds. This is a figure which I believe exceeds that of any place in the country, even of twice our size. In addition, £50,000 has been raised for various charities." Same Old Spirit. But though this "city of churches, charities and children," as it is called, has not yet suffered to any extent worth mentioning from the strain of war, the routine of constantly taking refuge in shelters is neither pleasant nor healthy. The indiscriminate mingling of people, there tends to spread disease, and it is perhaps due to war conditions that there are 235 infectious cases in the Bristol Isolation Hospital as compared with 134 last year. It will take more than this, however, to sap the spirit of the Bristolians.

When raiders come at midday there, is not the least sign of excitement in the streets. Recently I sat amid a large company in an hotel with only a glass roof and a black calico curtain between us and the. German bombers overhead. One of the hall porters switched off half the lights, murmuring apologetically. "Air-raid." Yet I saw no one move to seek safer shelter, though the "cr-rump" of falling bombs and the thud of A.A. guns could be heard clearly in the, distance. Twenty-eight cinemas, two theatres and a music-hall giving two shows a night are all doing good business, and this morning I noticed a column of six motor buses lined up full of people starting off on excursions to Wells, Glastonbury and the Quantock Hills.

To all the wars of Britain in the past men have gone out from Bristol to play courageous and effective parte. TheV are doing the same thing now that war for the first time has come to them.