The Last Chapter

later on like myself, but was helping machinists until he was 16yrs old. Joe was a good footballer and showed his skills in dinner hours in Dryden Street, when we would have a good kick around. I remember Joe starting, his granddad brought him over to the office and he started the next day. Georgie Bell was a bit older than us and had just started his apprenticeship. He was only short and was rather cocky because of it, over the few years I worked with him he got into a lot of trouble with his attitude.

  Every now and again the foreman, Harry Morris would send me to town for door and window furniture. Quiggins Bros. in Renshaw St. sold high class stuff, when I received the furniture I had to sign for it. Anyway one day I was called into the works office and the foreman said they wanted me in the upstairs office. When I asked why he said they were impressed with my writing and could use me upstairs. I started in the office, checking time sheets, work sheets, even used the switchboard now and again. Making the tea was another job for me to do, there were about a dozen people in the office, so the tea was a big job, three times a day. Ernie Tyson Harold Tyson, Les Tyson were the bosses but Ernie’s secretary ruled the roost. Her name was Gladys Dickie and was about 35-37yrs old. She would take wages to various jobs, a couple of them were in Warrington. Her car was a classic “Austin” like the police cars of the forties and fifties. She used to say “Come on Bobby you can come with me”. When she got into the car she’d pull her skirt up for comfort and I didn’t know where to look, I swear she did it purposely. Some days when I was making the tea upstairs she’d come out with her knickers wet and put them on the oven to dry. Her sister Gwen was a nice lady and a couple of years younger than Gladys, her husband was killed in action and she walked into the Mersey at Crosby and committed suicide.

  Harold Tyson was the stuck up one of the family. I took a cup of tea into him once and he wanted to see my hands, when I showed him he made me take the tea and biscuits back and wash them. Gladys used to flash a solid gold cigarette case and would boast that Ernie Tyson gave it to her, question was what did she have to do for it. Gladys used to breeze in dressed to kill in the morning and Mrs Barry the office cleaner who was a funny woman, used to give me a look and say “Fur coat, no drawers”

  A chap called George O’Keefe was one of the clerks and did his best to upset me. Being only 15 yrs. old I had to do as I was told. He made me do jobs that really weren’t my work. The worst thing he done one time, I had a pocket watch my dad had given me, in my back pocket and he kicked me as he went past me and smashed the watch. I was fuming and asked him what he was going to do about it, he did say he’d give me some money but he never did. A nasty piece of work if ever there was one.

  The war was well on the way, in ~France and General Montgomery was chasing Rommel through North Africa. I was still in the office when the air raid sirens went off for the first time. It was only a false alarm but it caused a lot of concern and excitement. The next morning, Gladys was full of it and in her excitement she said “When they went off, I kicked Will out of bed”, now in 1940/41 something like that was frowned upon. Will was her boyfriend and was a gas man.

  It was 1941 and the war was going strong, we’d had a few raids which did some damage and everyone had to get used to the shelters. Then May came along and it came with a vengeance. We had a brick shelter between us and Mrs Mason and for almost 10 days we practically lived in the shelter.

  I had to coax Gladys to let me go down to the joiners shop to start my time. She said she thought I’d be better off staying put, but eventually she let me go.

  Tyson’s had a scheme going on they took one shilling out of our wages and added the same each week so at the end of 20 weeks we’d get a tool order for £2. Then I would go down to Manchester Street in town and get some tools.

  So my first day on the bench I was put with Tommy Martindale who was an excellent tradesman. He said “You need a tool box so go down to Tommy Cartwright and tell him you want some yellow pine for a box”. Tommy showed me how to set it out and then did one corner of dovetails and left the rest to me, and under his watchful eye I finished it and was quite proud of it.

  One morning we all arrived at Dryden St. for work and some wardens had condemned the joiners shop off. There had been an unexploded bomb landed in the middle of the factory, George Bell and myself were concerned for our tools, they were all fairly new then. We asked the warden could we go and get the, he emphatically said “No you can’t”. We must have been mad really because when I think about it now, it makes me wonder. George and I decided to wait until the warden wasn’t looking, we run in the shop, walked past the actual crater the bomb had made and could see the top of the bomb. We picked our tool boxes up and walked back out, the warden gave us a right dressing down and was quite justified. It was a silly thing to do because it was a 150lb bomb and would have blown us to smithereens, I don’t think I told my parents about it. After it was defused that bomb stood on a stand in the office reception area for a few years with a plague with the day/month/year it was dropped.

  Tyson’s moved me to Paul Street where all the big woodcutting machines were, we were making frames with 1 ½ x 1 timber about 3ft square with asbestos on both sides with wood shavings for insulation. They actually put these frames together to make accommodation for American troops. But from our point of view, all it really was knocking nails in, cutting asbestos and we had to wear gloves because the timber was full of preservatives and always wet. Not a nice job at all, so when Georgie Bell asked me did I fancy joining the army, I said “let’s go”. We went to Renshaw Hall in town and went through a medical and was virtually in, but I was under 17 ¾ so I needed a letter from Tyson’s releasing me from essential works and a letter off my parents allowing me to go. My dad wasn’t all that bothered as long as I knew what I wanted. I stopped my foreman, Harry Morris in the joiners shop and told him I was joining the army, he said sarcastically which army, the boy’s army. Anyway he passed the message onto Mr Smith the Manager, it was a race who would get to my dad first, me or Smithy, and he won. He talked my dad around and he told me I wasn’t going. Mr Smith called me into the office and asked me what the problem was, when I told him I didn’t think I was learning anything doing what I was doing, he promised he would do something about it. They let Georgie Bell go, he was a little older and didn’t need permission.

  I got into dancing and frequently went to Blair Hall in Walton Road, we used to look forward to going there. I had also joined the army cadets at Gordon Institute, Kirkdale and had met Teresa Hynes who lived locally. Teresa was a nice girl who had been at Notre Dame School in Everton Valley, we got on well together but I didn’t want to get too serious. This went on for a couple of years, she even used to call for Ethel to take her to the baths. Everyone liked her in my family, but I felt as though I was being pressured. A young sailor kept getting her up to dance in Blair Hall and one night I told her to get to know this lad better. It worked, she started going out with him and I felt a lot better. Later on when I was in the R.A.F., I had second thoughts about her, but on my leave she told me she was engaged to the sailor. I believe they married, had 5 kids and she ended up mayoress of Kirkby.

  Getting back to May, we really got a hammering, being May the nights were quite light. I remember standing with my mother at the door of the shelter and watching a German bomber getting shot down over the Mersey. We were so close to the docks where we lived, as the crow flies it was only about one mile. I’d built a set of bunks in the shelter because we were in there a long time, one night we were just sitting talking when my dad threw himself over as many of us as he could, just for seconds I heard a ripping sound. When you could hear that sound it was close, my dad must have heard it first and reacted right away. A massive explosion occurred, it was in the next street and one man was killed. Another time I was in a barbers shop on Westminster Road about 5 o’clock at night and the anti-aircraft guns started, sometimes the A.A. started before the sirens. An
yway I jumped up with half a haircut and said something about coming back tomorrow, I don’t know whether I did. When I look back to the days of the blitz, I regret what I put my dad through, being a teenager when I could, I was going out with my mates. When I got home I’d want to go to bed and did so a lot of the time, consequently I was asleep while the air-raid was on. My dad used to run in the house and call up the stairs “Eh my lad, get down here into this shelter” Most of the time it fell on deaf ears, but apart from my own safety, I was putting my dad in danger as well.

  A young lad called Eric Collins went around all the shelters and said there was an unexploded bomb in the entry, everybody panicked and didn’t know what to do. It turned out it was an outer case of a burnt out incendiary bomb and the panic was over.

  We lived in Stour St. Kirkdale during the blitz and the next street was Dart Street, there were stables in Dart Street with 4 or 5 houses in it, they were all killed by a direct hit on the stables. My dad was working nights, mainly fire watching and I knew my mother and the kids would be on