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This story has been submitted to the People’s War website by Liz Andrew of the Lancshomeguard on behalf of Winifred Russell and added to the site with her permission.

I was 12 years old when war was declared — I had three sisters and two brothers. My oldest brother was called up the following year when he was 19. He spent most of the War in the Middle East. He would send us individual letters — they were photocopied and about 6 inches square.

My Dad was a tram driver. He never knew when he’d be home in the evening as he would have to take shelter from Air Raids and stay with the passengers.

At home we’d have to go to a corrugated iron Air Raid shelter dug into the garden — an Anderson shelter. It was very cramped with six of us and water would seep in so that eventually it was flooded and we’d just take a chance and stay inside the house.

We could hear explosions and Ack Ack gunfire as the Liverpool docks and city were being bombed. The May Blitz in 1940 was very severe. Scotland Road was flattened and whole families from Duke Street and Byrom Street were killed .

My Dad had a few narrow escapes. We had neighbours who were fire watchers and my Dad was in the Homeguard. He and his comrades made a little truck for their fire fighting equipment with which they tackled incendiary bombs and it was kept in the garden of the house at the corner of the road. One of our neighbours, Mr Jarvis, had to do fire watching at Morrison Jones, the big grocer’s but he was killed — It was awful - he went out one night and didn’t come back …and he had young children.

For a few months we didn’t go to school but had lessons in different houses. We’d take turns — and it used to be in our house on Wednesday afternoons. After a while it was considered safe enough for us to go back to school as it was on the outskirts of town. Though we did have a few bombs in our district, they were mostly incendiary bombs which caused fires.

I started work in an office in town and it wasn’t unusual to have to get off the tram early as it couldn’t get through all the debris and the hosepipes that criss crossed the road. I remember after a very heavy raid we had to walk most of the way past bombed buildings. When I eventually reached the office it was full of glass because the bomb blast had blown in all the windows. We had to clean up the office as best we could and just carry on. The office was opposite a tobacconist’s and often you would see people running to form a queue as word got around that there had been a delivery of cigarettes. I used to smoke myself when I was fourteen.

There were some nice times — people were so friendly to each other. The door was always open to the neighbours. We went to the cinema and saw films like Brief Encounter, Waterloo with Robert Taylor, Betted Davies films and musicals — but, because of the Air Raids, we seldom saw a film the whole way through.

We got used to rationing — we’d get one fresh egg a week, so we got used to making omelettes with dried egg; snook, which was tinned fish that we’d make into rissoles and fishcakes — anything to disguise the taste. We never saw sugar and my mum used to try and make butter last the week by beating a drop of milk into it. We had to make everything go a long way — we lived on carrots and potatoes! At the shops, if you were well in with the branch manager you might get an extra chop or something…

When I was seventeen I went to Plessey Communications. Then I was sent to a building in Bootle where they made Bailey Bridges. I was trained to use a rivet gun — but it was too heavy and I was too small to hold it properly and I was sent back to Plesseys.

Joe, my first husband, was a Prisoner of war for five years. He became a very good card player — there were lots of card games in the camps. He was taken in Italy and marched form place to place. They were so hungry that once he stole a chicken and hid it under his coat. He had his teeth knocked out by the Gestapo. But once he was near A Russian camp and the Germans treated them worse.

On VE Day we all celebrated. I was with a friend from the Office — it was the first time I had been in a pub, The Jolly Miller in West Derby, and the noise was terrific. The atmosphere was euphoric — everyone got carried away. Somebody gave me a drink — I’d never even tasted alcohol before. I thought my Dad would have killed me if he had known I was there.

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