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 Liz Williams and added to the site with her permission.

I was twenty seven when the War started. I lived with my mother in Union Hill Street in Liverpool. My father had died, leaving her with eight chidren to bring up and I was the oldest girl. It was a hard life. I worked as a cleaner at an optician's. I got married during the War to John. He was a soldier - a corporal but had been a foreman on building sites before the War.After he was demobbed he found it hard to find work.

The War was bad. We had a brick Air Raid Shelter in the middle of the road but the dogs and cats used it so we never went in. We'd go to the next street where a friend had a shelter in her cellar. We'd run out the back way and dash in there. Once my mum was in front of me and she tripped and cut her face and we just stayed at home.

The May Blitz was the worst part of the War for me - There was just Bombing, Bombing all the time. Once I remember the sirens going and all the family were at my mum's house. We all went under the table but my brother kept playing the gramophone - in the end he wound it so hard that the spring fell out. The bombs were falling all around us - just missing us...and he just carried on playing the gramophone.

Other times we took cushions and sat on the cellar steps. I was on the bottom step. You could hear the planes and the whistling of the bombs. Once I thought we'd had it but the bomb just missed us and dropped at the end of our street. The following morning we found shrapnel on our pillows - it was a good job we hadn't been in bed or we'd have been killed. When we came outside there was no water and no light - there was nothing we could do - you couldn't even make a cup of tea.

All my brothers were in the War and my husband and my brothers in law. It was good when they came home on leave. We were very lucky that we had no one killed either in the Forces or in the May Blitz.

I don't know how we all came through it but we did.

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