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My name is Winifred Young (nee Scarth), I was born in Everton in 1927. In 1937 we moved to West Derby, Crosby Green and I attended the village school. I was one of six children, my parents’ fourth child. Life was idyllic until the rumbles of war were to take all that away. We heard it announced on the wireless, but the grim faces of my parents, who had been through one war, told us how serious it could be, and indeed it was. Air raid shelters were being built in the schoolyard. We were taught what the sirens meant, the warnings and the all clears. We were given identity cards and gas masks to be carried at all times. My father made a trap door in our house in the floor of a room, which we would descend by ladder to the cellar underneath. We spent a lot of time down there during an air raid at night. My Dad was too old to go in this war, so he joined the ARP as a senior warden. I worried about him a lot. Wardens made sure that all blinds were drawn, no lights showing through and all torches, when on, pointed down. Windows were also covered in sticky tape in case of splintering glass. Some of the patterns stuck on the windows were quite artistic.
In school, when the warning sirens went off, the children were called in orderly fashion and crossed into the cold brick shelters. The teachers tried to keep us happy and there was one girl who always sang the Welsh National Anthem.
Of course there was rationing of food. My Mother kept hens in the garden, so we had eggs and chickens to eat. We had an allotment and grew our own vegetables. As the war progressed my older sister joined the Land Army and my brother joined the Royal Artillery. He was a Dispatch Rider.
After I left school at 14 I got a job with Joseph Rank, the flour merchants, in Brunswick Street office. I was assigned to the post desk and one of my jobs was to deliver all the local mail by hand. One day I was called into the office and asked, have you got your gas mask and identity card? Yes, I said. Then we want you to do a very special delivery for us. You are to take this letter over to Derby House, do not let anybody but the Admiral (I have no recollection of his name now) handle it. He will identify himself to you and is expecting you. I crossed the road to Derby House. Two sailors, armed with rifles, stopped me, I showed them my identity card and I passed through. They must have been briefed about me and I passed through to another two armed sailors. They carried out the same inspection. I cannot remember whether there was yet another guarded door or not, but eventually I found myself in a great big room covered in huge maps, the largest table in the middle of this room, also covered in maps, with lots of high ranking Naval men there. They stopped talking when I was shown in. I was scared stiff! I identified myself, was led to this auspicious looking Admiral and gave him the letter. At last it was over and this 15-year-old trembling girl was led out. Why me? Was it because I looked so innocent, which of course I was, and I did not put too much importance to the affair until I found out years later that that was where the Battle of the Atlantic was planned.
Well, life went on, but all around there were bombed buildings, lives were lost, children evacuated and people were made homeless. My Dad, when he was on his rounds at night as ARP warden, discovered a family made homeless and brought them round to our house where they stayed for a week, until accommodation was found for them.
My brother came home on leave the same time as his friend, Bill, who was in the Cheshire Regiment. Bill asked me if I would go out with him. I said I would ask my mother if I could and she gave us her permission. I fell in love with Bill, we had a fortnight together and then he was sent to Italy. It was two years before I saw him again when we got engaged, and married in 1948.
My Father was in charge of the Liverpool Museum during the war and he supervised all the precious artefacts and valuables being moved to Carnatic Hall and Sudeley Hall for safekeeping.
There were lots of scary moments during the war, tragedies, and men who never came back home again. There was disruption of life, but at the same time I think there was a lot of love and caring for one another, thought of one another and just did their best and carried on.
It was lovely to celebrate the end of the war, but so sad for the devastation of people’s lives, the loss and the crippling of so many people who did not recover.

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