大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People's War website by Liz Andrew of the Lancshomeguard on behalf of Mrs Joan Holden and added to the site with her permission.

I was about thirteen when the War started and I lived in Bootle with my parents, two sisters and one brother. My Dad worked on the Docks and my Mum looked after us at home. I had a job at Appletons - a haberdashery shop.

Once when I was at the shop I remember hearing the sound of planes coming over and when we went outside and looked up there were two planes fighting in the sky. The next minute we saw one trailing smoke. It veered away and came down somewhere though I'm not sure where. I ran back into the shop!

I used to finish at Five o clock and that's when the Sirens began to sound. I would fly home and dash striaght into the Air Raid shelter - there wasn't time for tea. You could hear the whistle of the bombs. Once I heard one and thought it was going to hit us but it missed and caught the shelter at the back of us. The people inside were hurt but not killed. Sometimes it would be ten or eleven at night before the All Clear sounded.

My Mum had to dye sheets to put up at the windows so that no light escaped from our house.My Dad was an ARP warden. He would get home from work and put on his helmet straight away and then he'd be out patrolling the streets. If he saw a chink of light he's shout, "Put those lights out."

During the May Blitz there were seven nights of Bombing over Liverpool. The Germans were after the ships and the warehouses. We'd come out of the Shelter in the mornings to find the streets were full of shrapnel and we'd find out who had been killed that night. There was a big Air Raid shelter on Stanley Road under the Co-op and they filled it with bodies. But it got hit by the bombs and they had to throw lime on the bodies so they wouldn't smell.

It was a really bad experience - I wouldn't like my children or grandchildren to go through anything like that. I don't think they'd survive - they aren't as tough as us.

We were evacuated to Wigan - to a neighbourhood called Scones. We stayed with a lovely family. I would get the train after work at night and we'd stand at the back door and look at Liverpool all lit up with the bombing. We'd left my Dad behind working on the Docks and he used to tell us it was terrible. I'd turn away and say "I don't want to watch them."

I remember going to the Pictures once with a boy when the Air Raid sirens went. A notice came up on the screen saying that if patrons cared to leave the cinema they could do so - or, if they wanted, they could stay. I jumped up and ran all the way home. It took me 25 minutes and I didn't stop once. When I got home I dashed straight into the Shelter. I'd simply left the boy at the Cinema. I never went again. But I did go to the Park sometimes where a gang of us used to meet. There were good shelters there - they were right underground.

I carried on working at Appletons till I was nineteen when I got married to a lad who was in the Navy. He had been stationed in Vernons at the bottom of Hanlon Road. He ws sent to the submarines and there was a time when he was missing for a while. It was a very worrying time - but you couldn't do a thing - you just had to wait for news.

It was lovely on VE day - we had all the flags out and there was a band at the bandstand in the Park. We were all singing and dancing - there was no drinking - but everyone had a really good time.

I never thought then that I'd live till this age and that I'd have the thirteen grandchildren and four great grandchildren that I have today.

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