大象传媒

Five years old, a small girl sitting on the backdoor step in the sunshine, all the grown ups sitting indoors, strange on a beautiful day. My mother had died three years earlier so this was my home. Funny, wonderful Billy, my daddy, had remarried but was ill with eventually diagnosed TB so I lived with Nanny and Grandpa seeing Billy occaisionally. I sensed Grandpa behind me and looked up, all he said was "Come on, you can help me, we have to cover up all the windows so that we can hide inside, England is going to war". What excitement, everyone rushing around with sticky tape and brown paper, it was great. The Anderson shelter came next and that was exciting too - watching the big hole being dug, seeing the corrugated shelter arrive, taking the torch into it, the beds being made - wow, were we going to sleep in it. It was all exciting, woken up in the middle of the night, lots of bangs, dressed quickly in my best clothes and rushed into the shelter. Grandpa wouldn't come no matter how hard Nanny tried to pursuade him. He liked his own bed, except for the night he came and lifted me out and stood me on top of shelter to see Liverpool burn. It was raging red, crested with orange, miles of light. He took me next day to see and smell the ruins, to see if Anuty Alice was still in Everton. Still fun, loads of kids playing in the rubble for weeks, swinging round lamposts on ropes never knowing the heartache just the joy and comradesphip of youth.

Billy had two brothers, Albert and Ronnie. They joined the RAF but being too ill my Dad could only work at the armaments factory. He died when I was seven and Grandpa died when I was nine. Nan and I were transported to London to live with her other daughter, Len her husband and Carol their little girl. This time the shelter was indoors and delight of delights, we could sleep under it all the time. Handy when the bomb fell in the road nearby and the ceilings collapsed and the cat flew from one end of the hall to the other. Well it was different and fun. So it was too dangerous to stay so we travelled back to Liverpool - it was quieter there.

What a train ride, packed out. Soldiers, sailors cases piled on top of each other with us kids on top. A very young sailor made friends with us and talked to us all the way. He lived in Devon and was on the way to join his ship. He took our address and several months later we received a box of wild flowers, yellow cowslips and primroses and a sunsuit for me but we never heard from him again.
Ronnie was missing over Germany but there were still parties every night at my Liverpool grandparents. Singing round the piano - I would be put to bed at seven and got up at ten to join the fun. It was living at breakneck speed. A different school, soup and mashed potatoe for lunch. Then they bombed Liverpool again so we went back to London.

New excitement, doodle bugs, waiting to hear them stop, rushing ouside to have a look, seeing the explosion. So we went back to Liverpool to the parties and the long wait to hear if Ronnie had been found. And he was in a German prisoner of war camp.

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