Born in Post War Bristol: From Bomb Sites to Test Flights

A personal account of growing up in the centre of a large city with a rich heritage in aviation, ship building, trade and engineering having to rebuild itself after being the fifth most heavily bombed British city in World War Two. After the war, everyone wanted and expected society to be better than before, and many people saw the destruction as an opportunity, to sweep away the old and re-build in the new "Modern Style." Unfortunately the new style with its reenforced concrete and large glass panels took little account of aesthetics, only practicality. There had been no research into how communities would be effected by these new surroundings, and so many mistakes were made. I was aware, even when a young child, of Bristol's heritage and often visited the Bristol City Docks or the Clifton Suspension Bridge, and when I started work as an apprentice antique restorer, I was lucky enough to carry out some work for Lord Wraxhall at Tyntesfiel House, before it was purchase by The National Trust, The Society of Merchant Venturers, Engineers House, the Red Lodge, the BBC and the City Museum and Art Gallery. My intention is to delve a little into their history as and when they crop up in the story of my early life in Bristol, and hope that you find both as interesting as I do. Colin Holcombe