大象传媒

I think my most vivid recollection of the war was when I was accompanying my friend Adam Kevan who was a Liverpool Carter, down to the docks on his horse and cart.
I was nine year old at the time and it was during the school holidays.
We were travelling along the dock road when the air raid sirens sounded off. The normal thing to do was to stop and take cover somewhere handy.
Not sure just what to do or what to expect, after all, at this time of day it could have been another false alarm, we pulled into the side of the road and stopped the horse.
Adam told me to get off the wagon and stand by the wall. He had just tied the horse to a lamp post when we heard the roar of an engine getting louder and louder.
Before we could do anything there was an almighty bang and a huge ball of fire rose in the air, back along the way we had just come.
Under the wagon was a large square, swinging cradle fastened to the underneath of the wagon by four chains. On this we carried buckets, horse feed and tarpaulins for covering the load during wet weather.
Adam grabbed me and just threw me under the wagon onto the cradle then hurled himself on top of me. Just as he finished covering us both with the tarpaulin a plane came swooping and screaming overhead along the dock road. The noise was deafening.
I heard what sounded like stones falling.
'Who's throwing stones?' I shouted at Adam.
'Just keep still lad' he yelled back at me.
Then we both realises what the noise was, machine guns. The plane, a German, was following the overhead railway and strafing along the dock road as it went. I was terrified. The poor horse was stamping and snorting and crying out, pulling on the rope tying it to the lamp post.
The cradle under the wagon with Adam and I on it was swinging about like a canoe in a gale.
Gradually everything quietened down. Some people came running over to us as we crawled out of our makeshift shelter, I don't know just what sort of protection tarpaulin was supposed to give us but then we were in rather a hurry.
'Are youse lads alright there?' somebody called to us and Adam replied that yes we were. Someone brought some tea over and I remember Adam saying it must have been a docker, those blokes could produce tea at the drop of a hat and out of thin air.
Looking round, we could see, further along the road, smoke rising from the docks and somebody said a ship had been hit and was on fire. In fact the fire engines were just arriving. Also further along the road, in a gateway, a motorbike was burning and a man was trying to put out the fire by weeing on it. A short while later we heard the all clear sounding off.
After a while we got ourselves sorted out and continued on our way, we only did the one load that day before making our way back home to the stable in Mould Street
When we arrived back at the stable I couldn't wait to tell everyone what had happened and of course, it was the worst thing I could have done. My Mam, under pressure from my Gran, lowered the boom on my dock trips and I was banned from the docks forthwith.

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