Life in a Village near Liverpool in WW2

I grew up in a small village not far from Liverpool, which was badly bombed in WW2 because of the Docks. Not far away there was a huge Munitions factory and a lot of local women worked there. A bus collected them in the morning and brought them back at night.

My father had been a German PoW in WW1, and as a result, was very, very nervous. Instead of a metal shelter in the garden, he built a brick-built shelter, but it was unfortunately in a ditch, and very damp. There was always water in it because of the ditch. It was horrible. Every time the sirens went, we had to go there. I remember once my mother screaming, really screaming, she had slipped in the dark and wet. I could only call out "Oh mum, are you hit?" We never went in the shelter again.

Instead, we trudged across the fields to friends who lived on a farm. We could have been hit going over the fields, but my mother would rather take the risk than go back to the shelter in the ditch. We were not far away from the Ordnance Factory at Euxton, so we were an easy target.

On Christmas Eve one year [1944] there was a Doodlebug raid. One farm lost all its hens. Many housed were destroyed. One of these bombs caused as much damage as two ordinary bombs. Because Liverpool was so near, there could be bombs all day sometimes, incendiaries and high explosives.