大象传媒

We came to Merseyside in late 1940 from Blackpool, where my Grandmother had a Boarding House, for summer visitors. Why we came was owing to my Stepfathers job 鈥� he worked as an installer for a Telephone company. The job usually entailed installing stronger switching equipment in G.P.O. (as it was then) telephone exchange.
So we arrived in Liverpool and arranged to stop with a lady, somewhere central I can鈥檛 remember exactly where: but they were keen bowlers, green bowling that is and used to bowl in the nearby park. I remember the first time I heard the sirens going and we panicked a bit and getting dressed in a hurry and putting my trousers on back to front, but by the time we got to the shelter it was all over. It was just about the end of the so-called phoney war, I鈥檇 had my eighth birthday in September 1940. But even now after so long if I hear the sirens go I get cold shivers down my spine. I will try to put into words my memories of very traumatic experiences.
Well after a while we moved into a flat in Wallasey over the Mersey on the Wirral, it was I think 10 Church St. It was a big house and we had a flat on the first floor. Then the Blitz really started, and every night we were bombarded from the air with high explosives and bombs. I did not go to school for about two years, there was none to go to, they were destroyed. I remember whole streets of houses, just heaps of rubble. But life went on and I remember I used to live on the beach and I remember being chased off the front by an Air Raid Warden, the sirens had sounded, but they never seemed to bomb us in the daylight and I think it was a plane taking photos of how much damage they had done the night before.
I used to get covered in black tar like substance which I believe was crude oil washed ashore from the ships which had been torpedoed at sea. But my mother did not take kindly to me coming home covered in this stuff. So air raid or not she was scrubbing me in front of the fire in a tin bath. Then the onslaught started and they used to drop 鈥渟creaming鈥� bombs which had a whistle in them and they used to shriek and were a Nazi terror weapon! But as I tried to bolt for cover my mother said 鈥淚f you are going to be killed your going to be killed clean you dirty little boy鈥�!! We did not go in the shelters because hundreds of people had been killed in the street shelters. So we got so used to the air raids we took our chances at home. This was lucky for us as we were bombed out at least 3 times we never got a scratch.
I remember taking me to Blackpool to Grandma鈥檚 to get a break from the bombing and one night the sirens went off and a German plane flew along the front dropping flares. He was lost and dumped his bombs on the beach and headed for home. Of course Granny was upset as they did not get any air raids there normally except for the RAF at Squires Gate Aerodrome, she played war with us saying: 鈥淵ou鈥檝e brought them with you鈥� As if the Germans were homing in on just us!? Anyway to get on with my story, we had to return to Liverpool and of course we arrived in the middle of a heavy raid. How we got from Lime St to the pier head, I don鈥檛 remember, but I think the trams kept running as long as they could, and we made it to the Birkenhead ferry. We then sailed across the river past the wreck of a ship which had been sunk midstream, marked with a green busy 鈥� then it started!! We were dive-bombed and machine-gunned all the way across the river and due to some superb seamanship from the ferry skipper we came to the Birkenhead landing stage, and hurried in to the shelter. Still under a heavy attack from the air, and whilst we were in the shelter they sank the gallant old ferryboat alongside the pier. (I remember them raising her some time later all covered in weed and encrusted with barnacles.) Back to my story 鈥� well we managed to get home to Church St and found the house we lived in split down the middle and partially demolished. So we were homeless once more!
I seem to think we moved to New Brighton after that and had another flat in a big house somewhere near Kursale where the tower used to be?
But we were eaten alive with bed bugs so my mother was not having that so we rented a home in Wallasey in a row of terraced houses, somewhere not far from 鈥淐ombens鈥� boat building yard. Please forgive the jumbled up state of this anecdote but as the memories come back to me I will put them down.
I remember one night in a particularly heavy raid my mum and I went dodging up Wallasey High St looking for a cigarette machine with some in it, and there we were dodging from doorway to doorway, with all hell let loose around us and the air raid wardens trying to get us off the street. My mother was a heavy smoker and could not last an hour without her Players cigarettes. You have to remember that at that time everyone smoked, it was the fashion of the time. It might seem bizarre now but it helped to keep people going with all the hell on earth that was the blitz.
Another memory I have is going to the cinema to see Walt Disney鈥檚 鈥淧inochio鈥� and during the film it was interrupted by the manager saying that anyone that wanted to take cover could go to the shelter, but would continue with the film for anyone who wanted to stay! I don鈥檛 think anyone moved and we stayed where we were and enjoyed the film in spite of the bombing and blasting going on outside. I鈥檓 sure shrapnel was coming through the roof.
Food, this was a terrible problem, we had ration books of course, but with the severe siege conditions, the shops had very little to buy. My Mum and I would go shopping and she would say 鈥� You get in that queue Son and I鈥檒l get in this one鈥�!! Then we would turn to the lady next to us and say, 鈥淲hat are we queuing for?鈥� A few potatoes or one egg 鈥� maybe some flour or a tin of beans? But very often after waiting in line for ages they would close the doors and say, 鈥渟orry sold out鈥�!! And we got nothing.
鈥淩un Rabbit Run鈥� was a popular song of the time, which was very appropriate as my stepfather managed to get a supply of rabbits. Some poacher I suppose making himself a few shillings, but we did not care! We lived on rabbit pie for years. Then one Christmas, I can鈥檛 remember which, it may have been 1941 we somehow obtained some black market Pork and we had roast pork dinner and what a treat.
What kept us kids going was the supply of Cod Liver Oil and concentrated orange juice supplied by the Ministry of food for children which made sure we got our Vitamins.
Irish Schooners used to come across the Irish Sea with bacon, butter and eggs, but I don鈥檛 think we ever saw any. Some people made a lot of money during the war!! My mother was conscripted into our Craft Factory at Speke, I think it was Rootes Car Factory before the war. She was fairly skilled and new how to use tools, and ended up by making the front Gun turret for the Halifax bomber. So she was working twelve-hour shifts and 9 year old me was left to fend for myself and you grew up fast in the 1940鈥檚. I used to scrounge round the shops and managed to cook her a meal of some sort when she came home exhausted from work. We had moved to somewhere in Central Liverpool then. Somewhere around Bootle I think. Several of these houses we lived in were lit by gas and the mantles came in a little box, it was 陆 for a small one and 1D for a large one, they were so fragile you had to be so careful when you lit them or they would pop and explode! Every one of those back to back terraced houses had a mangle in the yard with a wash tub and a posser 鈥� the kitchen had a coal fired boiler for washing clothes! No bathrooms, tin bath in front of the fire, toilet down the yard, freezing cold in the winter (we were tough in those days) for night time we used china chamber pots. Many houses still had wash stands with a big jug and bowl to wash in. Most houses only had one tap and it was of course cold! Especially in Winter Brrr!!!
Eventually the bombing eased off as we started to begin to turn the tide of the war. Then we moved to Walton, a bit posher area? 28 Mauretania Rd, I think it was near a lovely park just round the corner from the East Lanes Road, where I used to see the steam lorries coming from the docks, they were magnificent beasts with a chap shovelling coal into the furnace and puffing smoke out of the chimney, and I believe chains for the steering to the axle at the front. But I missed my waterfront 鈥� fishing for crabs under Egremont Pier with a bit of mussel tied on a piece of string. I also became boat mad (which has still enchanted me, anything that floats I love) There was a shrimp fisherman at Wallasey and he used to go fishing in the Estuary. His boat was called 鈥淗appy Days鈥� and sometimes he would give us kids a trip in her, and we thought this was sheer heaven.
Near the Pier at New Brighton there was moored a lovely fishing boat, a real boat with a mast and sails, when the spring tides came round, and the tide went out a long way I used to walk right out to her, and spent all the low tide admiring her from every angle. She had no name, but her number I鈥檒l never forget, LL191. She was a Lancashire Hobby of course, and I know now she was rigged as a gaff outer with a long bowsprit, but now I鈥檓 getting technical and you wont know what I鈥檓 talking about.
Well that鈥檚 about all I can recall for now, hope you can read my scrawl, never would use a typewriter. Hope it is some use in our quest for wartime memories. My Stepfather eventually got away from Liverpool, the problem had been every time he got the main exchange working the bombs would drop and upset all the delicate switch gear, so he had about 6 or 7 times effort to get it working properly over about 2-3 years. Then we went to London on is next job, for the V1鈥橲 and the V2鈥橲 which was a bit rough after the Wallasey Blitz, but that鈥檚 another story.
P.S The ferry was Royal Daffodil 2nd Bombed and sunk May 7th 1941. Back in service in June 1943, renamed St Hilary 2, 1957.

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