大象传媒

This story appears courtesy of and with thanks to The Liverpool Diocesan Care and Repair Association and James Taylor.

During air raids you were terrified of being bombed especially as I was working under glass all the time. I used to refuse to stay, I鈥檇 say 鈥淚鈥檓 running out no matter if it鈥檚 a false alarm or not, because if that glass roof was to fall on me you wouldn鈥檛 keep my baby.鈥� And they wouldn鈥檛.
I remember when the war broke out 鈥� I fell down the flipping stairs from top to bottom! My mother didn鈥檛 put a light on or anything because we were in blackout and I came out of the bedroom, I was married to Jack Hull then and the stairs had a turn in them and I鈥檇 forgotten all about it. Down I went! Jack thought I had the baby in my arms, it was Beryl then not John. Luckily I didn鈥檛 but I never missed a stair! My mother came flying out of my bedroom shouting 鈥淭he baby, Jack, the baby.鈥� I said, 鈥淚 haven鈥檛 got the baby.鈥� I was black and blue! Well we were going to a wedding the next night, Jack and I, and I鈥檇 been sitting there for four hours before I took my coat off! Oh it was shocking. When I did take it off people would say, 鈥淥h Kitty what have you been doing? Weren鈥檛 you lucky you didn鈥檛 have the baby in your arms.鈥� Well that was the first night of the blackout but it never worried me. The war didn鈥檛 worry me, my mother used to say, 鈥淣othing at all worries you.鈥�
People took their kids to the stations, and they were all in the air raid shelters, some mothers had big families too. You鈥檇 see the kids carrying their clothes and their palliasses on their shoulders on Lime Street when you were coming home from work; they were making their way to the air raid shelters. Liverpool isn鈥檛 mentioned enough in the History of War, it was all Coventry, just because their cathedral got hit. We had piles of them, Lewis鈥檚 was hit, Blackers was hit, lovely pubs got hit and the docks got hit. There were piles of places hit here in Liverpool and people died. A school went and it was full of people because it was used as an air raid shelter. It was in Clint Road, Edge Hill and a crowd of people went in there. There was all of that but it was never mentioned, it was a terrible tragedy but you never hear of it. There鈥檚 a big place in Anfield Cemetery dedicated to the Clint Road disaster, an awful lot of people were killed in that.
Oh my baby was terrified, well I think all the young children were. It was being closed in, they had masks rubber things, and they had a Perspex front so you could see the baby鈥檚 face. At the side there was a pump for the oxygen so if any gas attack had come you would have to pump the air in. Oh they were horrible things, but the young children used to get Mickey Mouse masks and the wardens used to come round and teach them how to wear them. The others were ugly things, but they did their best I suppose, we had black gas masks. We had to carry them, but thank God nobody wore them. My father was gassed in the First World War when they were hit with mustard gas, my father got that three times.
You had to go to the various clinics to get the gas masks. They were in a box and you carried them over your shoulder like a handbag and you couldn鈥檛 go out without them. The blackouts would cost you a fortune in batteries for torches and things like that.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by 大象传媒 Radio Merseyside鈥檚 People鈥檚 War team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with his/her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.