大象传媒

I am 79, formerly of Kirkdale, now living in Formby.

In 1940, after several months of bombing, the Kirkdale area had taken a fair share of bombs. My elder brother was away and my younger sisters evacuated; at home, 24 Newman Street, were my father, mother, eldest sister, younger brother and me.

Except for the fact that I was a know-it-all at the age of 17, I didn't understand why anyone should have taken any notice of my opinion. As a teenager I was working in Liverpool City and got to know several air raid centres, and I told my father that I knew of a bomb-proof shelter in town.

King's Liverpool infantryman

My father, who had been a teenage King's Liverpool infantryman in World War One, told me that the only such shelters were at Bernafay Wood on the Somme, which the Pals had captured on 1 July 1916. Even though he was a dock pilot, at bombing targets, such as Sandon, Huskisson, Canada, Brocklebank and Langton docks, his attitude to the Blitz was that it was lightweight compared with being shot at individually as a soldier.

Often, during air raids, my sister used to come home from work at Tillotsons and after tea went to the cinema or dancing then to bed. My younger brother and his mates spent the nights frightening people with screeching bomb sounds. My mother would not go into the brick shelter in the street, with good reason, as was later proved, when it received a direct hit in the May 1941 Blitz.

A so-called place of safety

For some reason, just before Christmas, they all went along with my idea of spending the night in a place of safety. About midnight the shelter was hit and caught fire, and we were shepherded out by the Royal Court Theatre. Outside a fire engine had crashed into a bomb crater, and the whole area was lit with searchlights and chandeliers.

We were shown to different shelters in Elliot Street, Great Charlotte Street, Cases Street and, in my family's case, to Lewis's in Ranelagh Street. I later learnt that my sister had been playing the piano throughout the raid - Sonny Durband, Lewis's resident pianist, had left his sheet music in the Music Department, which at that time was in the shop's basement.

Shattered

We eventually got home to Newman Street to find our house had been shattered by a bomb in the back yard; all the furniture was full of glass. We were ordered to a communal rest centre in Archer Street (now an organ works) and eventually joined hundreds of others in St Theresa's crypt.

Meanwhile, I was told to find my younger brother. I went to his pal's house in Great Mersey Street and found him playing cards by candlelight in the semi-basement with his back to a large window. His mate's mother came down the stone stairway and said to her son, 'Bill, put that shilling in the gas meter.' He put his hand under where the container should have been and then handed the bob back to his ma - not a smile or a comment from the card players, just, 'Fifteen for two, 15, four and one for his nob.'

Military targets?

Years later, when I was in Antwerp, a rocket hit the Rex Cinema, killing 750 people during a matinee showing of 'Buffalo Bill', and yet only recently I was told that at least the Germans tried to hit only military targets - ho hum, ho, ho, hum.

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