Catch up TV

Series 1: Episode 4

During the Blitz, over 450,000 bombs dropped on Britain and every bomb has its own story. This series examines the specific effect of four bombs, from their initial impact on individual lives, right through to their wider consequences for the Second World War, and all the way to the present day. Each episode begins with a single bomb in a single street in a single place - London, Hull, Clydebank and Bristol. Across the series, incredible personal testimony, gut-wrenching memoirs and the meticulous records kept at the time provide a visceral and terrifying account of the Blitz that directly connects with the human experience of the bombs. As survivors and relatives attest, these bombs touched the lives of everyone and created a legacy we all still live with today.\n\nThis episode looks at the deadly impact of an incendiary bomb that sets fire to St Peter's Church in the historic heart of Bristol. Before November 1940, the Castle Street area was full of shops, businesses and homes all served by St Peter's. But on the night of Sunday 24 November 1940, the German bomber aircraft came.\n\nThat evening, Geoffrey Serle and his father had been attending church when the raid began, and almost 80 years later, he recounts the terror and their desperate attempt to find shelter amongst the chaos. Bill Hares was a tobacconist in nearby Merchant Street and the film explores his carefully preserved account of that November night when Bristol's firefighters simply couldn't cope. Bev Reynolds also tells his father's story - he was a police driver who tried to help the firefighting effort. Following the bomb, Castle Street's residents and workers took in the dreadful damage the Luftwaffe had done. One local photo journalist stepped in to take pictures of the devastation, telling a human story of the bombs that many at the time would never see thanks to government censorship.

Source: BBC 2