大象传媒

My memory is from the May Blitz of 1940, the final intensive raid on Liverpool by the Luftwaffe, and it concerns the Saturday morning during that fierce attack. I worked in Dominion Buildings, an old narrow group in South Castle Street which was a fringe commercial area of the city, away from the prestigious banks and shipping offices. As with much of busy Liverpool, where many such offices existed, ours supported two 30-ish men; an Auctioneer and Valuer and the other a Surveyor. Both jobs overlapped and included estate agency and both were out of the office a good part of the time.

I had been with the firm for about eight months. By that time one partner had been called up for the Royal Navy and the other for the Auxiliary Fire Service locally. Saturday morning working was quite normal and in the day people arrived in some trepidation, not knowing what to expect. The rent collector and I arrived to find that something heavy had dropped near to 6 South Castle Street and much of the fa莽ade had been shattered but we were able to pick our way in assess the damage.

The partner in the AFS arrived after a night on duty and we held a council of way in the Crescent, (at the junction of Lord Street and Castle Street, it contained Austin Reed鈥檚 shop) which was intact. From somewhere I telephoned a cousin who ran a fertiliser business in Birkenhead. His driver was not delivering that morning and came over with the small pick up vehicle, parked in the Crescent and proceeded to help the other two to carry the firm鈥檚 account books, rent records, ledgers, files, the typewriter and those black japanned tin boxes that in fact you could sit on, plus everything else there was time to fetch.

I stood by the vehicle. It was brilliant weather (good for bombers unfortunately) and could have been a lot worse for that sort of exercise. All was taken to the Partner鈥檚 house in St. Hilary Drive Wallasey where one room was unfurnished and from which we operated until an arrangement was made with another one-man-band to share premises. Theirs had survived even the Saturday night鈥檚 raid which had completely flattened Dominion Buildings and a great deal more of Liverpool.

One thing stands out. Does anyone remember those long ebony rulers then in use in some offices? Glass from the smashed windows had been everywhere and a few crystals had been ground into the ebony at one end, where they remained as a memento of that raid.

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