May Blitz on Liverpool, anniversary

Next week will be the 70th anniversary of what was known as the May Blitz, when Liverpool came under the sustained attack of the Luftwaffe.
My Mother was a young girl at the time, having just left school, and she told me many stories of that terrible time.
At the time the family lived near the docks, very close to Princes Dock . The docks were the prime target for the bombing. What would happen was that the family would get home from work, start cooking dinner, then the sirens would start. They would make their way to the air-raid shelter, and spend the whole night there. At first they used the nearest shelter under a factory, until my Grandad pointed out that Bibbys manufactured soap and other products and they were sheltering under huge vats of acid and other chemicals; so they changed to a different shelter.


[The street where my mother lived]

In the morning, the "all clear" would sound, and they would emerge, then have to go to work. There were no days off because of the bombing. Streets were often unrecognizable, and the buses would be unable to run, but people were expected to get to work on time. After work, the bombing would start again.
My Mum and Dad hadn't yet met in 1941. Dad was a seaman on the Atlantic conyoys. In May he was on a ship from USA scheduled for Liverpool, when they were diverted to Glasgow because "Liverpool didn't exist anymore" This turned out to be an exaggeration, but it shows how intense the bombing was.
My Grandad was in the Auxilliary Fire Service, and wasn't home for several nights during the height of the Blitz. When he finally came home, blackened with smoke, he lay on the bed, still in uniform with belt and axe, and instantly fell asleep.
An uncle came home on leave from the Army, to find the house flattened. Nobody had telephones back then, and even the public phones were unreliable because of bomb damage, so he had to walk the city, trying to find various relatives, until he located where his family were staying.
The women of that time were amazing. They had to cope with the Blitz, looking after their children, while worrying about their men who were in the forces fighting. They endured a lot, and deserve much more than the world they have now.

Sad, very sad that it came to this...In many ways the men in service had it easier than the folks at home...

"lest we forget" and our politicians have, in more ways than one.

You Dad is lucky to have survived...the Battle of the Atlantic was something else...

Ken
The seafarers seemed to take it in their stride. I suppose, with everyone involved in the war in some form, it was expected that you got on with your job.
My dad crewed several oil tankers, which were basically a floating bomb. He was on the San Dimitrio on the voyage immediately before she was torpedoed.
It's a little known fact that the pay of the merchant seaman stopped the instant their ship was sunk.

My family house got an incendiary device through the roof, that never went off. My Grandad put it in a suitcase & took it to Bootle Town Hall. The Town Hall was promptly evacuated.

I'd imagine one either did their job or went mad thinking about it...I would have gone through much underwear I can tell you that...

They were a hardy bunch.

The old lady I used to clean, shop for and look after when I was a young man was amazing.

She lived next Door and feared no-one: the scallies that broke into her house- she had a go at. The mugger who attacked her in the street, she fought off aged 73. The cancer that eventually got her, she fought for 9 years.

But the sound of thunder, which reminded her of the blitz , had her running next door to us for fear of being alone.

We have no idea what they went through.

My Mam and Nan,

Used to live at 7 bold place when it was bombed, moved out in the early 60's to neston then birkenhead :(, always had the altar cross form st.luke's in the house until my mum died in 1995 and gave it back to the church in bebington has she wished. Even after the church was bombed they used to marry people in the grounds, nan used to run a boarding house full of navy and army blokes, mostly got sunk! but survived.

James