A Time of Peace and War

Bootle in Merseyside was the most bombed provincial town outside of London due to its extensive dock system being the gateway to the Atlantic. There were just over 500 separate bombing raids on the town starting on 29 August 1940 with the last raid on 29 December 1942.The deadliest raids took place between 02 and 08 May and remembered as the 'May Blitz' when Bootle and Liverpool suffered saturated bombing that lasted between ten and twelve hours per night leaving Bootle without any mains water, gas or electricity. When the raids finally ended eighty-five per cent of the town’s buildings were damaged and one thousand eight hundred and eighty-six civilians were killed or injured including members of my own family who were pulled out from under the rubble of their bombed house in Stafford Street off Marsh lane.This is not their story but it is a story about the lives and loves of ordinary working-class families as the war clouds gathered across Europe through the years of conflict through to the hard-earned peace.