大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Edward Fawcett for Three Counties Action on behalf of Bob Winstanley and has been added to the site with his permission.The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
When I was about five years old I was living in the Wirrel about 1941.One night the police knocked on the doors of everyone in the village and we were told to move to the local Barnado's home, which everyone did. I was quite happy as I had my Teddy Bear but there was a lot of criticism from the adults.Looking back I suspect it was just a practice to see if they could organise an evacuation. A bit later on I was "helping" my father building a Morrison shelter in the dining room.Iwas greatly impressed by two armchairs stacked on top of it. Quite regularly at night the sirens would go off, so we would descend from our bedrooms, mother and myself,as father would normally be on duty in the Homeguard, and shelter in the Morrison shelter. Often, the lady from next door would join us as she was nervous by herself.At the age of four or five this Ifound quite an amusement.There was a mobile anti-aircraft battery in the Wirral and it was a great escapade to go and look for shrapnel but my father warned me about collecting the tails of incendary bombs as they might still contain phosphorous.I seemed to be the right age to enjoy the war as by the time I was old enough to realise what it was about we were winning!Our village got off very lightly with boombing, only two houses were ever hit.Occasionally we heard a low flying bomber possibly being chased by a fighter.It was always the Liverpool docks that seemedto get it.When VE night came along there was a big bonfire and celebration on one of the nearby farms. My father had a couple of thunder-flashes left over from the Homeguard and he set them off with a very loud bang.My father was called up to the RAF but the firm he worked for appealed and his job was made into a reserved occupation. He was General Manager responsible for the distribution of jute sacks essential for storing of bulk food stuffs.Mother didn't have ajob but stayed home looking after the family.It was obvious rationing caused quite a strain but towards the end of the war we did get the occasional food parcel from Bendigo in Australia which was a real treat.There was a glue factorynearby and a lorry and trailer was delivering hams which had been recovered from a sunken vessel in the Merseyto the factory. The driver, who had got lost, attempted to reverse the trailer out and managed to tip it over two doors away from our house. All the rotting hams spilt out. The smell was absolutely appalling and a crew of local dockers using hooks were brought in to put the hams back on the trailer. They had to use masks because the smell was so awful, the local bobby was given a hankerchief with eau-de-colgne!

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