Tuesday, 7 May 2013
May blitz
Much has been written about the effects of the Nazi blitz on London back in the early days of WW11 but because of the importance of London the devastating May blitz on Liverpool has gone sadly under reported. 73 years ago my mother as a young girl spent night after night hiding beneath the stairs in the family home or sheltering in the air raid shelter dug into the back yard. My home city suffered much physical damage (some still visible) and a great loss of life. My mums stories of unexploded bombs in neighbouring gardens and seeing bodies lying against walls apparently untouched yet dead from blast effects make any of my present day problems seem trivial by comparison. My grandfather worked right through the blitz in Liverpool's dockland, the veritable eye of the storm and yet never missed a days work regardless of danger even spending his spare time on the dockland power stations roof fire watching and extinguishing incendiaries......a tough people and a tough city.
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6 comments:
Pause for thought here, Thud!
Parents and GPs were a hard-tested bunch, and even now, I find out more of what they went through!
I remember London being littered with empty bomb sites when I was a child (late 50's), with the purple of rosebay willowherb sticking in my memory, along with the giant timber props they put up to stop neighbouring properties from collapsing.
And my mother spend many nights under the keyboard of their (upright) piano - which I still have.
As well she did, because a land mine destroyed the house two doors along, and that piano saved her life. Without which, etc etc.
As you say, tough times and tough people. I wonder how 'Elf n'Safety would have managed back then?
Aww...that got me all teary eyed. Good, old Liverpool.
WY, our parents have a lot of equity in this country through their efforts some of which we inherit and build upon, something not to be squandered by feckless politicians.
Don't forget the Battle of the Atlantic 70th anniversary is on from the 23rd, and over the bank holiday, expectations of about 35 ships from different countries is expected and ships will be open to the public, so Liverpool will be swinging, Fort Perch Rock is open and is the official amateur radio site, with radio operators coming from the USA,Germany and from a number of radio clubs in the North West, the secondary radio site is Leasowe Lighthouse (1780), but that is closed to the public, the idea is they will attempt to call other hams around the world and rack up a call for each of the 2800 ships that were sunk in the Atlantic, the expectations is that 99% of calls will be in Morse but as they are expecting some new radio hams voice will be allowed.
My little town of Teignmouth had the shit bombed out of it because it was the site of a boatyard manufacturing naval parts and because of the U.S. forces billeted here in training for D Day. It was easy to find in the dark because of the estuary.
Roundabouts, by-pass roads and blocks of flats mark where there used to be Victorian houses. The memorial has 200 servicemens' names on it. A massive loss for such a small community - families often losing all of their sons.
The people that were there are the gentlest of folk and speak little of it.
There is strength in silence and all parts of Britain suffered stoically.
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