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I have already entered this story under the name, ‘brijoe’ Unfortunately I have forgotten my password so have entered another name.

Most of this is from memories indelibly etched in my mind.
A little is what I later learned.
But all of it is true.

Liverpool, my hometown, was the most bombed city after London.
3,000 people were killed. And 11,000 homes destroyed.

Memory

I am standing in the yard at the back of our council house.
I should be in my ‘shelter’ under the stairs. Supposedly the safest part of the house. We were to learn differently.
I have sneaked out to watch.

It’s a beautiful May evening in 1941.
The moon has just risen. It’s big and yellow in a clear starry sky.
There are grown-ups standing around idly talking. I can hear snatches of conversations.

‘I see her at number nineteen got caught with a yank last night’. One woman muttered to her friend.
‘And her with her hubby fighting Rommel, the hussy’.

Our local Vicar is here, he is trying to console a woman who had received a telegram that day.
A war office, ‘we regret to inform you’. She is heart broken. Widowed with a child on the way.

Every so often they look at the sky, a questioning look on their faces.
‘They’re late tonight’. Someone says. Voicing what they have all been thinking.
It’s as if a guest is late for a party.
Another voice. ‘Maybe they aren’t coming’.
‘Don’t be daft woman’. Comes a reply.
‘It’s a perfect night for them. A real bomber's moon that one’.

‘Here they are’. Someone else says, very calmly.
Then we can hear it. The unsynchronised throbbing of the German bombers engines.
‘Oh they are not that late after all’. My mother says.
‘I’ll go and make us a nice cup of tea before it starts’.
It’s as if they are waiting for a show to start.

In the distance the first crump of exploding bombs can be heard.
‘It look like Edge Hill is getting it tonight’. This said with authority by an Air Raid Warden.

‘Well he should leave us alone tonight then’. Someone offers hopefully.

‘Tea up’. Shouts my mother, as she brings out a loaded tray, with her Sunday best china, in honour of the Vicar.

As she passes the cups and saucers and prepares to go around with the teapot, also her best china.
A bomber, probably lost, gets rid of his cargo.
They land a few streets away. They are high explosives.
The noise is horrific. A blast wave sweeps over the houses.
Mother, who was just about to pour the tea, is blown head over heels down the yard. Teapot and cups lay shattered everywhere.
Luckily this time no one was really hurt.

But it was the first time I ever knew that mother could swear like that. Those Germans ears must have been red.

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