As everyone keeps reminding us, it's almost seventy years to the month since war was declared and the Liverpool boys who were boys when I was a boy are old men now. So, allow one of them to reminisce --- and more specifically ask three questions which continue to intrigue me.
1, Anyone who was a lad during the Blitz of 1940/41 will remember going out on the streets after a raid collecting shrapnel --- bits of shell casing from anti-aircraft fire. Those jagged lumps of pretty ueless metal became highly prized and collectable. I recall my gang even used them to play ollies (marbles ) tossing them along the gutter and collecting the other kid's shrapnel if you were able to hit it. I wonder, has anyone kept their shrapnel collection from seventy or more years ago?
2, Those barrage balloons tethered on cables and hung in the sky all over Merseyside to deter German bombers. Was there any recorded case of a balloon bringing down a bomber?
3, My first wife, as a little girl of about five, making her way home to the Liverpool district of Roby from Wavertree during a raid, tried to take refuge with her mother in an enormous underground shelter situated on waste land near The Rocket. It was so crowded they couldn't get in and continued home on foot. The shelter was hit by a land mine shortly after and many were killed. Does anyone have more details about that incident? For example, were there any survivors?