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Back in the 1930's my grandparents had a stable in Mould Street, Liverpool. As a young boy I used to go down to the docks with a young man called Adam Kevan who was a Liverpool Carter. Adam kept his horse and wagon at the stable.

One day in particular I will never forget. Adam and I were travelling along the dock road when the air raid sirens sounded off. Not sure just what to do or what to expect, after all, at this time of the day it could have been another false alarm, we pulled into the side of the road and stopped the horse. Adam told me to get off the wagon and stand by the wall. He had just tied the horse to a lamppost when we heard the roar of an engine getting louder and louder.

Before we could do anything else there as an almighty bang and a huge ball of fire rose in the air, back along the way we had just come. Under the wagon was a large square, swinging cradle fastened to the underneath of the wagon by four chains. On this we carried buckets, horse feed and tarpaulins for covering the load during wet weather. Adam grabbed me and just threw me under the wagon onto the cradle then hurled himself on top of me. Just as he finished covering us both with the tarpaulin, a plane came swooping and screaming overhead along the dock road. The noise was deafening. I could hear what sounded like stones falling.
"Who's throwing stones?" I shouted at Adam.
"Just keep still lad," he yelled back at me.
Then we both heard a noise neither of us could fail to recognize, a machine gun or guns. The plane, a German, was following the overhead railway and strafing along the dock road as it went; I was terrified. The poor horse was stamping and snorting and crying out, pulling on the rope tying it to the lamppost. The cradle under the wagon with Adam and I on it was swinging about like a canoe in a force ten gale.

Gradually everything quietened down. Some people came running over to us as we crawled out of our makeshift shelter. I don't know just what sort of protection tarpaulin was supposed to give us but then we were in rather a hurry.
"Are youse lads alright there?" somebody called to us.
Adam replied yes we were.
Thank goodness the horse was ok. It was still very frightened but gradually becoming calmer. Somebody brought some tea over and I remember Adam saying it must have been a docker; those blokes could produce tea at the drop of a hat and out of thin air.
Looking round, we could see, further along the road, smoke rising from the docks and somebody said a ship had been hit and was on fire. In fact the fire engines were just arriving.

Also further along the road, what looked like a wagon was lying on its side but there was no sign of a horse or anyone. In a gateway nearby, a motorbike was burning and a man was trying to put out the fire by peeing on it. A short while later we heard the all clear sounding off.

After a while we got ourselves sorted out and continued on our way; we only did the one load that day before making our way back home to Mould Street. That I remember thinking was near miss number two, recalling the Skirving Street bomb.

When we arrived back at the stable I couldn't wait to tell everyone what had happened and of course, it was the worst thing I could have done. My mother, under pressure from my grandmother, lowered the boom and I was banned from the docks forthwith. No matter how hard I pleaded with her, mother was adamant. The answer was NO!! I'd had it.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by John Baines of the 大象传媒 Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Robert L Aspinall and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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