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The Hoylake area, being close to Liverpool and Birkenhead, could hear and see the dreadful blitz they were experiencing.

The Hoylake shore was out of bounds, sealed off with barbed wire and anti-tank obstructions with big guns sited on the Promenade. The Lifeboat slipway had moveable barriers so that it could still operate and throughout the war, was called out frequently.

The Fishing Fleet continued operating and the dinghys used between the shore and the boat were chained to the promenade railings when not in use. The crews carried oars from home keeping them aboard the boats until returning with their catch. They came ashore again by the dinghy which had be attached to the mooring buoy. This being due to wartime security measures.

During the air raids many people slept on the platforms at Liverpool and Birkenhead on the underground sections of the Mersey Railway. The railway suffered severe damage to stations and carriage sheds as far out as Bidston where there was an AA gun site.

There was a Pioneer Corps. Unit stationed in Hoylake and I regularly watched them doing rifle target practice on a Golf Course. Also I joined in their marching and drill practice on the promenade. Each evening, during the air raids, they went off to Liverpool and Birkenhead on the 6pm train from Hoylake in readiness for any rescue work and clearing up needed from the bomb damage.

Hoylake also had an American Infantry Unit in the town, which I often watched as they marched and drilled on the promenade. How different they were to our soldiers. They suddenly left Hoylake not long before D. Day.

Offshore RAF fighters from Speke airfield regularly carried out air to air gunnery practice using a target towed by another aircraft.

There was an RAF transit base at West Kirby where my uncle was a civilian accountant. Airmen going to other postings usually left overnight entraining at Meols Station.

My maternal grandparents had a Morrison Shelter under the stairs which came in very useful when Hoylake had its only air raid. Some bombs badly damaged a church near the railway, the signal box and nearby buildings. Other bombs fell on Meols Promenade which was badly damaged and many nearby houses suffered minor damage and lost windows.

In the late spring of 1944 I remember seeing many aircraft flying southwards towing Gliders in preparation for D.Day.

Towards the end of the war many took advantage of the opportunity of going to Birkenhead Docks where we were shown a captured German U.Boat. This was quite an event seeing one of the vessels which had caused so much harm to our convoys and their escorting warships.

Life is strange. In a job I had in the 1970's, in a town far removed from Hoylake, one of the men in my department had been a Captain in that Pioneer Corps. Unit and we often talked about those extraordinary times and recalled so many events from that era

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