I was an evacuee at Gresford, North Wales but I was extremely lucky to be billeted with a caring loving family who accepted me as their own. Every day was a new adventure and I soon became very fond of my foster parents, uncle Len was a keen fisherman and he included me in his hobby; he made me a fishing pole out of a bamboo stick and we would go to a local pond and sit there talking as we watched the little calk float bobbing up and down on the surface of the pond; when he wasn’t busy talking to his mates he would tell me local stories, he told me about a big sly old pike that lived in the pond, he said it bullied the other fish and ate their young and uncle Len said he was determined to catch it one day … it never happened in the ten months I was with the family but I was certain that uncle Len would one day get that big old pike on his hook and later sit down with aunty Ginny and his daughter Doreen to a hearty supper with his arch enemy lying grilled on the plate.
Often aunt Ginny and uncle Len would take me on a mushroom picking expedition, I soon got bored but they fed my imagination with stories of fairies, pixies, elves and goblins. One day when we were out picking mushrooms uncle Len called out to me saying, “Look there’s fairy sitting on that flower”, I became frantic with anticipation saying,
“Where, where!”, “There” he replied pointing at a flower swaying in the breeze, “Oh! You missed her, she flew away.”
I was terribly disappointed but convinced that fairies did exist because my uncle Len had seen it … the whole family encouraged me to let my imagination run wild, and I did. The only Christmas I spent with them was wonderful, on Christmas Eve they sent me to bed early and told me that I must be asleep otherwise Farther Christmas wouldn’t come; it was a white Christmas and I lay in my bed waiting, I soon fell asleep but just before I nodded off I swear I heard sled sliding across the roof top. The Edgar’s were lovely people and I did lean to love them, they showed this little boy an existence that could only have been dreamt about a short while ago, they fed my imagination and allowed me to believe.
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Now I was with my dad returning to Liverpool on a big red bus, I was overjoyed but at the same time I was sad to be leaving what I would always remember as a very happy period in my young life.
It was December and soon got dark, after a while I grew tired and soon fell asleep, I awoke with my dad shaking me saying, “Come on son, we’re home”, holding me in his strong arms he carried me off the bus. It was cold and dark, there was no street lighting and the few pedestrians carried small hooded torches to find their way about. My dad put me down and we walked to a tram stop, we stood there waiting for the tram I was tired and lacking interest, I just wanted to get home to be with me Mam and baby sister. Soon the tram came rattling along, it was just visible with hardly any light showing on account of the black-out, once aboard we sat on wooden seat, half the windows were painted out and only a couple of low wattage, shaded lights cast a dim glow in the downstairs compartment, the leather bell strap that ran down to the bell in the drivers cab was barely visible, it was so different to Gresford, a long way from the green of the countryside but it was home and I was pleased to be there. I dozed off again and once more my dad shook me awake and took me in his arms, carrying me off the tram; I had absolutely no idea where I was, I just knew it wasn’t Holborn Street. We walked through the darkness, it was a long walk before we stopped at the door of a house where my dad took a key from his pocket and opened door. Inside a large blanket was covering the inside of the door to prevent light from spilling into the street and once the door was closed the light came on, it was nothing like the gaslight we had in Holborn Street, it was electric and once on me Mam was standing in front of me, she took me in her arms and smothered me with kisses … soon she would be chasing me with the broom handle.
The first big surprise on arriving home was that I had a new sister Phyllis, the new baby of the family; we were also living at a new address, Forfar Road, Tuebrook which was better than Holborn Street in that there was more open space and I considered the area quite posh.
Liverpool had really changed, the whole city was now on a war footing, shop windows, house windows in fact all windows were criss-crossed with heavy strips of brown paper, this was intended to stop the glass from flying around, cutting and killing people, in the event of a bomb blast … Shop and office entrances in and around the city had blast walls built in front of them … Huge EFS (Emergency Fire Service) water tanks were built in strategic places around the city and inner-city suburbs, later has the war progressed and Britain and her allies were getting the upper hand, these tanks became magnet for old prams, dead cats & dogs and other rubbish but at the time I am talking of they were an invaluable investment … Sand bagged walls rose from the ground in front of the department store windows and
Air- raid sirens wailed incessantly as the populace went through drills, practicing for the inevitable; Britain and her Commonwealth stood alone, at war and were girding for the death and destruction that was to come.
The ARP (Air Raid Precaution) wardens became the blight of the city and suburbs with their cry of, “Put that light out!”… We considered them to be a pain in the butt but they did a grand job caring for the public, ensuring that enemy planes got no guidance from the ground. Street bomb shelters sprang up all over the place with signs directing which way to go to a shelter, households were given corrugated iron shelters to erect, actually half underground, in back gardens … There was no doubt in anyone’s mind what was in store for us and the people of Britain and especially those beautiful scouses embraced each other and cared for each other, if you were in trouble you were never alone, there was always someone who would help … In each road and street someone took it on themselves to care for young mothers and families whose men was away fighting the war, inevitably it was a mature woman and just as inevitably she became known as “Aunty.”
Barrage Balloons flew above the docks and city, ships heading out to the Mersey Bar flew their own rigid type of Barrage Balloons, lightly armed ships forming up in convoys, brave young men preparing to take their chances with the wolf packs in the icy Western ocean (Atlantic)
It was 1941 I was six years old and returned from Gresford, where I was evacuated, brought back to Liverpool because my dad missed me. He was a Merchant Seaman and, in my mother’s words, “Was ploughing the ocean to bring us peace.” Many scouses were ploughing the ocean and many fighting in jungles and deserts, day and night other young men would fly to meet the enemy and take the war to them … The women were there too, in the military doing vital work or literally ploughing the fields to feed the nation … nobody shirked, everyone did their bit. No one complained, make-up was a thing of the past, it was improvising and the women called the replacement stuff ‘Fake’, stockings were out , the girls wore Leg-tan, standing straight as a boyfriend or family member drew a seam down the back of their legs; no one complained, sacrifices had to be made and everyone made them.
We seemed to spend a lot of time practicing for air-raids, or in shelters. The war really came to Liverpool in April/May 1941 and it really came. An ammunition train standing in a siding near Clubmoor took a direct hit, as did many houses in the area… We were in our Anderson shelter in the back yard and the blast from the ammunition train was terrifying, it blew the slates off the roof, all the windows and doors were blown in and the house was rendered unliveable, subsequently we were given emergency accommodation in Tunnel Road, Edge Hill, but now we were huddled together in our little shelter, crying and praying for deliverance … It was a horrifying experience, my Dad was away at sea and dear Mam had to hold us together. When we finally emerged from the shelter we saw devastation, smoke and flames were everywhere, many had died that night and many were homeless, the air was heavy with the smell of smoke and cordite, we had seen hell! Through the month of May the planes and bombs came every night and thousands died but as the city burned the stoicism of the people came to the fore; they were there every morning working to keep the city going and helping those less fortunate … much is said about the stout-heartedness of people of London during the blitz, it was like that all over Britain and non the less in Liverpool and surrounding areas. I pray the world never sees the likes again.
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