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I was born on 3rd March 1937. War was declared on my 2nd birthday. I cannot recall the start of the war, until May 1941, when a landmine fell in Prescot Road Liverpool 7. This was very near our house in Saint Jude’s Place. I can still remember the deafening noise, overlaid by sounds of glass breaking as windows were blasted from their framework, the dust clouds choking us. As all this was happening, I and two neighbour’s children were laying on a mattress on our cellar floor. We had been placed there for safety during the air raid. After the bombing, water flowed into the cellar, coming down the stairs, with that pile of water was my dad, slipping and sliding everywhere. Although I was frightened, it looked so funny a sight, we were laughing. Our house was badly damaged; we could no longer remain there. We moved around the corner to a two-up two-down house. The site of those houses now holds the Royal Liverpool Hospital.
My childhood was a happy one, despite the war. A grandad and two grandmas died around our area. I had a brother and sister who were a lot older than I. My brother was in the Army, he being aged 18, when I was born, my sister was a teenager at the time. A highlight of the war, was when I received a doll’s house made by my brother Doug and a German prisoner of war. Later by post came a parcel of a three-piece suite made from seeds and pips of fruit, also a dark green, small box of sweets; my brothers sweet ration.
My dad worked for a shipping firm; ‘William Little and Sons’. Playing out when I was six years old, my playground a bombed out house, broken crockery and soot from the iron range, still standing, water from a grid making soot pipes. Later I became very ill; I had contracted diphtheria, a serious and life threatening disease. Vaccination was not known at this time, even if my parents could afford it anyhow. I went into an isolation ward in the fever hospital; Netherfield Road, confined there for four long months, fed with a very funny cup with a spout like a teapot, smelling awful too. Recuperation took a long time away from my family as we got better, we went into communal wards, all eating our meals together, growing stronger, learning songs such as ‘If You Were the Only Girl in the World.’ Home at last from that awful place, cosseted by my family. Both nights in a tin bath in front of a fire, goose grease rubbed on my chest.
I remember my brother’s wedding dressed in army uniform, both him and Winnie in Saint Francis Xaviours and the community events such as V.E., V.J. days, street parties all sharing everything one could together. The painted side kerbs, decorators playing along with all the grown ups and my first Holy Communion party photographed in Jeromes’ shop.
My brother and his wife lost their first-born son aged nine weeks, my first sight of death, so awful at the time. The condition of their house was draconian to say the least; one family in a downstairs house, another family living above, only three rooms to each.
My mother lived throughout all the war and died (1947), aged 44 years only, what a waste.
I continued to live with my wonderful dad and my sister. Dad died (1950) aged only 50.
But thank goodness England won the war!

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