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I well remember September 3rd 1939, my 10th birthday was a couple of months away, it was nice and sunny and all the neighbours were mostly standing outside in great anticipation waiting for the radio broadcast. When it came that war had been declared the adults carried on their conversations, as children we felt excited wondering what was going to happen.

Over the next few weeks nothing much happened as far as we children were concerned, but the next thing I remember is that we were to be evacuated. Things moved on and the day came when we boarded the train at Woodside railway station bound for Oswestry. We were directed to the local school to be confronted by people who had volunteered to take evacuees in.

I remember I was one of the last to be picked, but I struck lucky for I went from a terraced property to a detached house just on the outskirts of the town. The name of the family was Taylor and the husband was the Borough Surveyor, and because of the war he was also put in charge of the fire brigade. Life was very comfortable, and I remember my parents coming to visit, and my mother claims they made a gentleman of me.

As nothing much was happening at the time, I was brought home about autumn time in 1940, the school had re-opened and life carried on where I left off.

It was not until 1941 that the bombing of Merseyside started in earnest, and I recall that after a raid it was out early looking for pieces of shrapnel, and the hope of finding a nose cone off one of the shells the artillery had fired.

My parents would not have a shelter built in our backyard, so we had to go into the neighbours shelter which was fitted out with a high floor and we tried to sleep with the blankets covering us, but it was nigh impossible. When the raids got particularly bad my mother arranged with my Auntie to shelter in the basement of a church which was next to my auntie’s house, this was on the corner of Market Street and Argyle Street. This worked alright until one particularly heavy raid when my dad, who was a member of the street fire watch team, slept all the way through it, in what he called the safest place in the house, so my mum stated it was the last time she would leave him on his own.

During the May blitz a land mine was dropped in Watson Street, close to Beckwith Street, and because we were sheltered from the blast, as St. Laurence’s Church, a large structure, was between us and the explosion, our house was saved from any damage. One or two days later, I was standing outside the house and I saw a dog with a huge piece of meat in its mouth wrapped in a piece of cloth. It was not until later I realised that it was probably a piece of human flesh as there were quite a few killed in that incident. Also, in a house next to the church an unexploded bomb had fallen, and soldiers arrived to dig the bomb out and make it safe, and what a cheer they received when the bomb was brought out.

I left school at Christmas 1943 and my first job was with the Birkenhead Corporation Ferries. I worked on the stage in the ticket office, and it was quite something to see the old luggage boats, complete with derricks, unloading ships in the river and landing the cargo on the floating stage.

A lot of the cargo was aeroplanes which came in large wooden cases, they were unloaded at the stage and were picked up by the RAF transport. What happened to the wooden cases I do not know, the consensus of opinion was that they were taken by the bigwigs for garden sheds.

By this time the air raids had decreased, and as the news was good from our forces we knew the end of the war could not be far away. Eventually when it was announced what rejoicing there was, and the lights were put up in Hamilton Square which seemed a meeting point for many nights.

All we had to wait for was the war in the Far East to finish, and I remember it was dark when it was announced but that did not stop the hordes of people making their way to Hamilton Square to celebrate.

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