大象传媒

Do you have recollections of the wartime camps in Huyton? Add your memories here.

William Robert Huyton (BoB)
In 1939 I was 7yrs old I lived in 110 Stockbridge Lane on the river Alt Right by the Alien camp I walked past it going to school I went to Longview School we would talk to the men through the wire,some times they would ask us to get milk for them. We moved to Page Moss in 1940 and I remember the black and the White Yanks fighting in and out side the eagle and Child,the black yanks were at Blue Bell Lane just by the Blue Bell pub they had fights out side that pub to,I remember some of the women would invite them in to their homes,I lived in 84 Huyotn House Road Page Moss. If I remember any more I will log on again.I know live in Shropshire.

John Cannon
Hillside housing estate, Huyton was built before 1940. During the War people living in Bootle had suffered terrible bomb damage and the homeless were going to be re-housed in Hillside Avenue but then the Americans where put in the houses instead. The American Army had the estate and housed all their Servicemen in it. The area was also cordoned of to the locals and you couldn't get through. I know some people around here have stripped the wallpaper from the walls and found the names of American Solders written on the wall underneath. I can also remember a farmer who used to drive around this area in a van loaded with his produce and he'd sell vegetables to the locals, he would also ask people to help him with potato picking.

Jim Fitzsimmons
I can remember my father (Bob fitzsimmons local red cross man) refering to the Americans being paid in white 拢5 notes and the locals exchaging them for five ten bob notes, it appears some nights later the Amercans returned and wrecked the Eagle and Child pub, it was then made out of bounds for them for a while

Ruth Corlett
Ruth Corlett (nee Gore) lived with her parents in Bluebell Lane, Huyton, as a young girl and one of the camps was behind their home. It was right at the bottom of the garden and when I was playing in the garden with my sister some of the men would call us over and roll fresh oranges to us through the barbed wire. They would try to talk to us but we couldn鈥檛 really understand what they were saying. They made us both a pencil box, painted brown with red flowers hand painted on the top. They probably made them out of the fruit crates. They also gave each of us a little signet ring which was gold coloured. They must have made those as well. On one occasion one of the men climbed up to the top of this huge brick watertank and refused to come down. We were in the garden with my mother and told by the soldiers who were guarding the men to go into the house. They trained their guns on the man and ordered him to come down. I will always remember that he was crying and shouting: ``I want to go home.鈥欌�� I remember my mother telling me that the men were allowed out of the camp to do things like garden maintenance for people who lived in what was then the village of Huyton. There were also some US serviceman based in the area. One of them 鈥� a black man - came down the road one day and my grandmother pushed me into the house 鈥� in those days you never saw a black face in Huyton village and my grandmother was scared of him. ``She pushed me back into the house and I said to her in my innocence: It鈥檚 only the chimney sweep grandma鈥欌��

Jean Ritter nee Finch
I lived in The Avenue , a small street off Blue Bell Lane . I do not remember any sympathy for the prisoners of war , I remember anger at the comments they shouted to us as we had to pass them, when we were walking home along Blue Bell Lane from the bus. Some of my school friends were killed in the Blitz and I simply could not forget that.

W.W.Jenkins
I lived in at the rear of the shops at Page Moss Avenue Huyton. I can remember both German and Italian prisoners being march along Prescot Road, to the camp at Blue Bell lane. I recall women with buckets of water, giving both soldiers and prisoners drinks of water. As children we would cross the river Alt, into the woods along side the camp and watch the prisoners, some would attempt to talk to us. but we would be told by the guards to leave, this did not detere from returning. Later when the Americans arrived, there would always be plenty of excitement outside the Eagle and Child publice house at Page Moss. There would be clashes between Black Yanks and white, and it would not be long before the American MP's arrive. I have seen fight which have ended up on the top deck of tramcars.