A Happy Child

When I was very small, living in Wallasey, we were bombed out. We were hiding under the stairs and the floorboards come up and nearly hit us in the face. My father said “We’d better move and go into the air-raid shelter.” And as we looked outside of the door, you could see the landmine falling, it absolutely wiped out the school opposite. I wasn’t evacuated. My father was a warden in Bibbys’, Liverpool’s Soap factory, he used to do fire watching. It was quite exciting, we’d collect shrapnel out of the gutter. I didn’t find it hard, I suppose our mothers found it harder queueing and all. I think children were much happier back then. I was eight at the time.

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