大象传媒

My name is Harry Gallagher. I am sixty nine years old.
During the Second World War I was an evacuee. There was a lot of us and I remember lining up outside a railway station waiting to be taken to a village near Blackpool.

We had all been taken away from our families for our own safety. The first harrowing experience I had was two German parachutists banging the door where I was staying in an avenue by some large open fields. They had bailed out of a crippled bomber. They shouted through the open letter box, 鈥淟et us in.鈥�
The lady of the house slipped down the stairs very quietly. She could see a barrel of a gun pointing towards her. The next door neighbour was a member of the local Homeguard. The lady had a very long cane with which she tapped on his window. He straight away switched on all his lights and they ran away. There were a lot of other homeguards in the area. Once the neighbour alerted them they went after the Germans and eventually apprehended them both.
The next bad experience I had was being taken to Liverpool Royal Infirmary Hospital for an operation for a mastoid in one of my ears. Liverpool was being bombed incessantly most nights. I was in a children鈥檚 ward and we were all told to lie under our beds when there was a bombing raid. The windows in the hospital would rattle all night long from the vibrations.

After peace was declared I went back to where I was born. My mother鈥檚 house was in an area known as a ghetto. Her being a widow was living in extreme poverty. My mother had not seen me for ten years and I had six brothers and four sisters who were all separated because of the war. It had left a terrible void that has never been filled. My father died when I was three years old. I served twelve years in the armed forces when I became of age. I have a military medal for active service in the jungles of Borneo.

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