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I was 11 when the war broke out. I was part of a family, which included 6 deaf people, so I was relied on to hear the sirens. There was one occasion when I failed to hear the warning siren but woke everybody up at the all clear!
To prevent this happening again, the man next door was ‘tied’ to me. A rope was passed through the windows from his house, and across to our house where it came through my bedroom window, and was tied to my wrist. When the sirens went off he would pull the rope thus waking me up so that I could alert our household.

I lived in Upton, by the station. Trains continually moved iron from Bidston to John Summers Steel Works, in North Wales, passing through Upton Station. A landmine fell on the railway, but did not go off. I went to have a look at it! Another bomb caused a huge crater in the road that the buses had to avoid. We all collected shrapnel, some was red hot when we went to pick it up, some was very sharp. I kept mine in boxes under the bed. It was always good for ‘swaps’ when we went to school.
I went to Tollemache Road School. We had a flat at the school for Domestic Science training. There were two cookery rooms, and we had to learn to cook with the ration allowance. Our sewing lessons were also with Rationed material.
Rationing finally ended in 1953, 8 years after the end of the war.

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