Down Tools

This story appears courtesy of and with thanks to The Liverpool Diocesan Care and Repair Association and James Taylor

We’d go to the pictures as it was only three pence to go, but we wouldn’t go at night time, we were too scared. They used to come over in the daytime sometimes. The sirens would go and wed all down tools and you’d run out of your house, whatever you were doing, and run to the shelter and stay there. Then the all clear would go and they’d say “You’re alright now.” It even happened during the day that.
You only knew the bombs were going to drop when the siren went and then you’d come out of the shelter and you’d say “Oh, I wonder if my house is still there?” I could come out with a few women and when they looked up the street they’d say “Oh, it’s my house that’s gone.” Dead flat you know. But, I think where I lived it was the railway they were after ‘cause it was taking goods up and down. I’ll never forget that shelter, you know, in Durning Road, it was a lovely building and I think they mistook that for the railway.

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