The Project
Searchlights Over South Gloucestershire is a dramatic interpretation of real-life experiences gathered from oral histories, letters and diaries of people living in the area during the Second World War and retold on Twitter.
Follow the lives of three fictional families, whose members include a schoolboy, a land girl, a Red Cross volunteer and an aircraft engineer at Filton, as they do their bit for the war effort.
Brass Works Theatre and writer Adrian Harris present the project in association with South Gloucestershire Council’s Second World War Stories initiative and funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. With additional thanks to volunteers at Yate Heritage Centre and Kingswood Heritage Museum, and to the Imperial War Museum, London.
Real-life stories
Margaret’s story
Margaret was born in Church Road, Kingswood, in 1926 and moved to Hanham Road, opposite what is now Beacon Rise Primary School, just before the outbreak of the Second World War. Here she talks about her early life during the war and remembers a particular air raid when the Luftwaffe targeted the aircraft factory in Hanham Road.
Roland’s story
In the following video from South Gloucestershire Council’s Second World War Stories project, Roland Wood, who was born in 1928 and grew up in Kingswood, remembers the Bristol Blitz, nights in air raid shelters and joining the National Fire Service as a bugler.
The families
The Crew family
[tmm name=”the-crew-family”]
The Hubert family
[tmm name=”the-hubert-family”]
The Thomas family
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The Twitter feed
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