Terry Barton was born in Bristol in 1933 and grew up in Shirehampton. He lived with his parents on the corner of Woodleaze and Sylvan Way on the eastern side of Shirehampton Golf Course.

Terry’s early memories of the Second World War include being subject to air-raids during the Bristol Blitz when Avonmouth was the true target.  This brought the war literally to his own home. He recalls his father discovering an unexploded incendiary bomb in a hedge by the back garden, which he then dismantled on the kitchen table.

Following the entry of the United States into the war, the Americans arrived in Shirehampton and started building a camp on part of the golf course. At first there was no access as fences were erected and guards stopped the young boys from entering. They could see a series of accommodation huts being constructed, which lined the perimeter of the course along Shirehampton Road all the way to the club house. A further camp was built over the road along Penpole Lane.

The hostility from the US Army soon ended when hundreds of young GIs moved into the huts. It must have taken them back to their own childhoods to see boys, barely ten years younger than them,  playing without a care in the world. The boys were allowed into the camp and had lots of fun with the men. Having been living with rationing for over three years, sweets were a very rare sight for the chiildren. This wasn’t the case with the Americans who were more than happy to share their surplus candy.

Terry and his friends got to experience some of the soldiers’ lives too. On one occasion the boys followed GIs on an exercise in the Blaise Castle Estate. Here, the men practiced digging slit trenches – a skill that would be vital for their survival in the fields of Normandy. The boys got a spade and were allowed to join in the dig although how much help they were wasn’t recorded by the soldiers! Years later, Terry heard that questions were being asked about these strange dips and mounds in the Blaise Estate: were they Iron Age? Or Saxon? Terry was able to provide the solution: they were Second World War vintage!

Another time Terry and his friends followed the GIs was on a route march towards the Downs. They marched behind the soldiers to St Mary’s Church on Mariners Drive, Stoke Bishop before resting there and waiting for the soldiers return.

Further adventures were had with the Yanks when they hired horses from a stable in Stoke Bishop. Terry rode with them bareback all the way to the Downs, which resulted a number of nasty blisters!

The soldiers that Terry saw in the Shirehampton Golf Course camp were white as black troops were housed in separate facilities and generally treated poorly. On one occasion, Terry remembers going into the woods behind his home and finding a prime example of this injustice. A black GI was with his white girlfriend when US Army military policemen arrived. They started beating the black soldier and then dragged him off to take away in their truck.

As spring 1944 progressed, Bristol became more and more populated with American troops. US Army vehicles were parked all along the Portway and this presented Terry and his friends with a perfect opportunity. Of course, he didn’t realise this at the time, but this was the build up to D-Day.

One day, they snuck up to the back of one of the trucks and managed to pinch a few boxes of K-rations, which they shared amongst themselves. The boys found they had chocolate and cigarettes but the one thing that Terry really remembers was the American candy Lifesavers, which had a distinctive mint flavour. It was a flavour that he would always remember for the rest of his life.

Other Shirehampton/Sea Mills memories: 519th Port Battalion and schoolboy Brian Gearing.

Source: Personal interview with Terry Barton, 14/02/2023

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