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World War 11. Memories of 1939-1945 in and around Bootle, Liverpool

Author Copyright-Joan M. Dyer.

Chapter One

I was a tiny child in 1939 so my memories of the early years of the war are vague and for over sixty years I have often asked myself ‘When did this or that happen? So the chronology of our little lives during these times is not very secure. I say little for we were three children all just about under five years old in 1939. Our parents were Jack and Esther Crolley, and although my Father had quite grand Christian names of John Gerard Neville Anthony, he was always called Jack. As far as I know he only ever used the J and G as in a signature. The others he would occasionally mention but always with a wry smile to remind us that he was someone to be reckoned with.

My Mother, Esther was the second child of Richard and Elizabeth Williams who were Welsh, from the Mostyn area of North Wales. My grandmother’s maiden name was Luke.

My brothers’ names are Terence, Brian and David and I am Joan Megan, now Mrs. J.M. Dyer. David, our younger brother, was not born until after the war so the years in question are about Terence, Brian and I and what I can remember of those years. David, who from his birth has been a great joy to all of us, obviously enters the story a little later.

My Father worked on the docks but was not a rough man. He was clean cut, well spoken, upright and a man of strong character but kindly and paternal to all of us. He held strong views on many issues and stuck to his principles. His work, my Mother once told me, was only allocated daily so that he never knew for certain what his wage would be each week. He would leave very early and hope to catch any work that was going. On the whole he usually got employment. The system of being selected for work, by someone that was either something to do with the Unions or as we hear today someone that would be called a ‘gangmaster’, continued for many years and seemed to be based only on whether or not you were liked by that person on that day. If you were not chosen you were out of work. For some this could have gone on for weeks. On the whole then he was able to keep the family. However, he did on one occasion bet what he had earned on a horse and lost the lot. He had tried to double his wage for my Mum and no doubt for us. At some point of time my brothers remember going to collect my Dad’s wages on a Friday morning so that my Mum could do her shopping. Presumably at this moment of the week she had no money and you can only imagine that this was a total necessity, risking loss of the wages in various ways, not least that my brothers could have been robbed or that they would simply lose it.
My Mother played the piano and loved to follow all the latest music and songs from films. She would buy the piano sheet music and soon we all knew the words and tunes of the current radio and film songs. It was always intriguing to me that her maiden name was Esther Williams, and I have wondered if she became interested in film because of this. For the uninitiated Esther Williams was a famous star of the silver screen, who specialised in swimming, which talent was blended into her story lines. My Mum had no such luxury and was a very hard working Mother and, like many others in the area where we lived, she battled with the dust and grime that fell constantly from the skies. She was an excellent writer of letters with never a spelling incorrect and she encouraged us all in our education, especially as the education system post war improved. Later she even found us a 6d a lesson piano teacher called Miss Cannon. This charge for lessons would have been 2 ½ pence today. My two brothers and I went weekly for a time until it became obvious that only one of us, Terence, was really talented musically. From this early start Terence went on to become a church organist of over fifty years now and an organ recitalist in addition to his work in a senior post in the Probation Service. He holds M.Sc. LRAM, and other Qualifications. We have all achieved to a professional standard in our various careers and our parents led the way and guided us, especially my Mother. Brian became a Qualified Marine Engineer and worked for Blue Star Line as Chief Engineer, David has a C.A.Design post with Kodak and I became a Qualified Teacher in various posts over the years. I had an additional qualification as a Qualified Teacher of the Blind, (Birmingham University), and eventually became a County Advisory Teacher with Hertfordshire County Council for pupils and students with Visual Impairment. Our parents would have been pleased and proud of our achievements.
My Father’s Mother and his two sisters lived at Oakdene cottages, Bickerstaffe, near Ormskirk. My Grandmother and Auntie Dorothy lived in one cottage and my Auntie Essie, Uncle Bill Bates and my first cousins, Tim(Ronald) and Betty (Elizabeth) lived next door in an adjoining cottage. There was a big garden and my Grandmother and Father kept chickens and my Father grew vegetables. Everyone had to make the best of anything they had and the garden at Bickerstaffe was a big asset.

My Mother’s parents and her two brothers and a sister had lived in Bedford Road, Bootle pre-war. Bootle was, my Mother told me, very well endowed with good shops and was quite up-market then. However, my memory starts with the knowledge that my maternal Grandparents lived at 10, Hatfield Road, Bootle. They had come to Liverpool, probably in the early 1900’s, from North Wales to train and work as they were both in Nursing. Most of our Maternal relations were Welsh, from Mostyn, North Wales and both my maternal Grandparents spoke Welsh. We still have relatives in the Mostyn area, notably Auntie Glenys, Miss G. Luke, my Mother’s first cousin and another relative called Helen, who lives next door but one to Auntie Glenys. My Mother and her sister Edith were very close and were only parted when my Auntie Edith went to live in South Wales near her husband’s family. My first cousin, Sylvia was born in Maesteg in 1941.Our cousin who we all loved so much and who, particularly during our early years, was integral to this story was more like a sister to us than a cousin, sadly died in 2002.

We lived, I believe, in Aughton, then Burscough and then in Walton at Weaver Street. This was not too far from my Grandparents home in Hatfield Road. Years later my Mother told me there was bombing at Walton and we had to leave there. I think, we were for a time, living at my Grandmother’s in Hatfield Road but it is all rather vague. I do have a vivid memory of walking with my Grandmother in Fearnhill Road one night. We were going to the air raid shelter in or near Bootle Park. Clutching me to her she was saying ‘There, there Cariad’. Then a terrible sound came ever nearer and passed low overhead. My Grandmother pulled me down to the ground. It sounded like an aeroplane but not quite the right sound. It must have been a bomb dropping, or a ‘doodle bug’, as shortly after there was a loud explosion. I do not think my brothers were there at the time although they may have been. This, I think now must have been 1940 or ‘41 when I was about two or three years old. I think it is my earliest memory. The bombing had come to Bootle.

There are muddled memories following this and my brothers may know better where we all were for some of these times. They have told me that we lived at a number of addresses in and around Bickerstaffe. Sometimes we were together but at other times separated. However my next memories are those of being with my other, paternal, Grandmother and our Auntie Dorothy at Bickerstaffe. This is when we were evacuated. It must have been quite a commitment to take on three children. My Grandmother must have been about seventy. The cottage had very thick walls and upstairs the windows were very low down near the floor. There was a living room with armchairs and a table and dining chairs. The sitting room had an exotic, very old, perhaps French, display sideboard. It had, I later learnt, ormolu decoration and was full of equally exotic fancy china. It was never heated in that room so was freezing in there. At the back was a cottage kitchen with a butler sink and draining board and some cupboards. The staircase was very narrow and led to two bedrooms with sloping floors and a tiny boxroom. My Auntie Dorothy must have moved into her Mother’s room in order to accommodate us. There was no electricity upstairs so it was always candlelight in winter and a stone hot water bottle. We always had chilblains every winter on our hands and feet. My abiding memory was the cold.

At one time we all took part in making rag rugs. There was a device for fixing the rags to the backing. All manner of scrap cloth was cut up into strips and I remember cutting the strips and making a heap ready to be woven. The end results of the rag rugs were quite colourful and you could spot material you knew, previously having been an old dress, clothes or worn blankets.

In the summer we went up to Rigby’s farm to see the cows, cats and kittens, horses and chickens. I can remember the smell of hay in their big barn and my brothers and cousins playing chase and hide and seek. I was scared stiff of everything, the animals, the scratchy straw making my legs bleed and especially remember my cousin Tim trying to point out a mouse to me and instead of me liking to see it I was frightened! My cousin Betty would show me how to go on the swing that was a rope on the apple tree. I was scared stiff of this and felt really stupid as Betty seemed to like going on it. One summer we all helped with the harvest and I remember being shown how the stooks of wheat or corn were to be stood up to dry. We also went pea picking, potato picking or gleaning after the field had been cleared. Gleaned potatoes were free and we took any we could get back to the cottages for storage. When pea-picking, (or fruit picking), there was great disappointment that even though it had taken you all day to fill a box with peapods or fruit you did not get a vast fortune for what seemed to be a huge amount. I am not sure to which years some of these memories belong.

Joan M. Dyer. Author’s Copyright. 2004.

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