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This story appears courtesy of and with thanks to The Liverpool Diocesan Care and Repair Association and James Taylor.

During the war I was teaching in a school that was made of wood. It was meant as an overflow, because there were not sufficient schools, so they built these wooden schools. They were quite comfortable. I was teaching for about thirteen years, then I was given Headship. So I went back to school and was given more money.

But during the war there were air raid shelters built in the playground, which was not very nice at all. At night we had to do fire watching.

Were a lot of children evacuated?

Oh yes, I was in charge of the children who were to be evacuated. Of course not all the children went away, the parents at first could please themselves really. Then as the war progressed it became more compulsory for the children to be sent away. Some children did not stay away very long, because their parents wanted them back, because they were missing them.

Was there a shortage of books and equipment?

Well, I can’t honestly say I experienced much of that because my school was pretty well stocked up before the war began.

What happened during school hours if you heard the sirens?

We had to get all the children into the air raid shelters and it was up to the teachers to keep the children occupied and calm. They didn’t work though because we had no papers or pencils down there.

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