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was born in 1937 in Liverpool and my strongest memory of the war is as a young child during air-raids. We’d be put to bed in an all in one suit that we called a ‘siren suit’- a bit like a baby-grow today. And then the sirens would wake us all and I remember being picked up bundled downstairs into the garden and into the Anderson shelter that was all fitted out with blankets, food and paraffin lights. The sirens used to really frighten me . My father was an ARP and often on duty so we wouldn’t see him sometimes for a night or two. My uncle was a train driver and he used to hoot certain signals so his wife knew it was him driving past. He was also often away because he was only allowed to drive the trains during daylight hours and it meant he would often have to stay overnight in other towns.
One night there was very heavy bombing and my father said that our house probably hadn’t survived- and of course there were no phones in those days- and I sometimes wonder how he coped with the idea of being an ARP on duty while his own home and family could have been hit. The following morning when we came out of the shelter all the doors and windows in our house had been blown off. The catholic church behind and above our house was completely destroyed.
Even now 60 years on- if I’m sitting at home I don’t like to be shut away in a room or not have the lights on- and I think my anxiety about the dark started all those years ago as child living through air-raids and the blackout.

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