BOMBING OF EVERTON

I was born Elaine Pattie and lived at 69 Premier Street, Everton, Liverpool with my Mother, Father, older Brother Ronald and my Mother’s 19 year old twin sisters, we lived a very happy life, well fed and for those days in Everton a well furnished house, we even had electricity. I never guessed, or even bothered to think that this could so quickly be changed.

The fact that there were search lights, barrage balloons, and dog fights in the sky did not particularly worry me, in fact this was normal and to my childish mind for my amusement, I could not understand why when out shopping with my Mother in Breckfield Road North she would spoil this entertainment by pulling me into a shop doorway to avoid any stray bullets, I would have preferred to stay and watch the air display.

Life went on, only being interrupted by the sirens going off when we would all have to go into the cellar of the house opposite, (to protect us in the event of being bombed these cellars had been reinforced and were interconnected with the rest of the other house cellars by a small square opening) but most of the time the Docks were being bombed and we did not think that the Germans would bomb Everton. Again being a child I treated this as a game and would hide my clothes to make it difficult for my Auntie Edie, who had the dubious honour of being in charge of me. My cue to start performing would be when our cat, Topsy, would run into the gas metre cupboard before the sirens even went off, consequently before my Auntie had me under control it was too late to evacuate to the cellar, so we two spent many an air raid either under a table or the stairs. My Father was very seldom involved in this performance as he was a Marine Electrician and spent his time on the Docks repairing the crippled ships that had managed to return to the Mersey.

Luckily for me, and Auntie Edie, in September 1940 the sirens went off, Auntie Edie was in full control and we all managed to get into the cellar. I can remember the sound of the aeroplane engines as they went over, (they had a very distinctive undulating sound, which my Brother has since told me was due to their being twin engined bombers that weren’t synchronised); there was a silence then we waited for what seemed an eternity for the blast to come, landmines were being dropped by parachute hence the silence before the blast, then everything and everybody shook, we had no idea what had been hit and had to wait until the morning. What a morning it turned out to be, we emerged from the cellar in the dawn to the sight of our home with guttering hanging off, holes in the roof and windows blown out. A bomb had been dropped in Friar Street behind our house. Our Mother was devastated, but being the down to earth lady she was would not be beaten, promptly took us all home and tried to make it as habitable as possible, the holes in the roof meant it was impossible to live upstairs, so mattresses were put in the parlour and we lived virtually in two rooms of a semi derelict house awaiting the next visit of Herr Hitler. Our Mother had a natural Liverpudlian sense of humour and managed to make us all feel that we were not too badly off, after all we still had our home.

This meagre life was not meant to last for long, in May 1941 the sirens went off, we all piled into the cellar opposite, and once again we heard what we now knew was the sound of the German bombers coming over, the eerie silence came, then a blast even greater than before, Dowing Street which was behind our ‘sanctuary’ had had a direct hit by a landmine causing a lot of serious damage to Hamilton Road and Premier Street. This time the door to the cellar was jammed with rubble which meant that we could not exit immediately the all clear went, but had to wait for what seemed an eternity until the ARP men came and dug us out. This time not even our Mother could reclaim anything out of this destruction. We did not have much furniture left in tact, only a small table that my Grandfather had made many years ago, this I mention as we had to go into what remained of our house in order to let the gasman empty the metre, it was a bit scary as we were accompanied by soldiers with guns because of looters, the money was emptied onto the table and I thought my Mum was going to hit the gasman for scratching the table, while I was thinking “what does it matter we are standing in a bombed house”, but I suspect to our Mother this was the final insult. (I still have the table my inheritance from WW2.) After this traumatic incident for our Mother we set off walking round our relations’ homes asking if we could stay the night, we had a few different homes over the next few weeks, ending up in my Father’s sister’s cellar. But as we found out there is a God, my Auntie Edie had married her soldier finance and gone to live on the Isle of Mann where he was stationed, when they heard of our predicament Auntie Edie arranged accommodation for us in Douglas Isle of Mann. Even this journey was precarious as the boat had to stop mid-passage because of a floating mine scare. My Father stayed in Liverpool, as wild horses would not have dragged him away from his ships.

The ironic ending to this WW2 story is that we stayed in the Isle of Mann for 2 years, by which time my Mum could not get back to Liverpool quick enough, and the Liverpool Corporation let us rent one of the two remaining houses at the bottom of Premier Street on the opposite side to 69, number 74. It was a bomb-damaged house, with only one gaslight and one fireplace, so out came my Mum’s tin of white paint, which she reckoned held the house together. Here I grew up, and the debris that once was the area of Everton into which I was born became my playground.

I have lived in the fresh air of Nantwich Cheshire for 40 years but I will never forget the smell or sound of the days of the Everton blitz.

Elaine (Pattie) Latham

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