The Last Chapter

by Robert Lawson

their own. However, he was still there because his boss told him “Tommy, if it starts before you leave on your bike stay put”. Another night it started early and dad stayed at home, the following day he was told his two mates who he would have been with, had been killed while they stood at Billingtons gate, on Great Homer Street.

  Everyone who could would help with fire watching, I did it myself in Tyson’s, you would sleep on the premises and every couple of hours someone would keep watch. I did it with Bobby Hoyland and 2 or 3 men and at 16yrs of age it was an adventure. My uncle Will Flanagan did his stint in Croylands Street where he lived with Aunty Peg and kids, Billy, Jackie & Mary. It was the same street that St. Lawrence’s School was in, it was the Sunday, towards the end of the May blitz and it wasn’t very heavy, and everyone was relieved. The next morning there was a knock on the door, I opened it and the headmistress of the school stood there, she said “Is your mother in” “I said no she’s out shopping”. I was shocked when she said “Mr Flanagan was killed last night outside of Woolworths on Walton Road, I run up Orwell Road into Westminster Road as I was going up Bradewell St, I saw my mother near the Fire Station. When I got to her, I broke the bad news she was completely shocked and cried. I took her shopping, to allow her to go over to Aunty Peg. Mother told me to go down to my Ninny Walling’s and tell her, I may have gone on my bike from Tyson’s in my dinner time, it’s all a bit mixed up, but I did go down and I remember telling her. I was thinking why did she get her lovely haircut, a strange thought really in the circumstances. It was a terrible shock to her and she asked me to take her over the road to my Aunty Nellies to tell her. Nellie was scrubbing the living room floor and she was on her knees when we told her, she was shattered and cried her eyes out. My Nin never seemed right after that and she died a year or so later, she was only in her sixties. Uncle Will was apparently so badly cut up, they wouldn’t let anyone identify him, my dad offered to identify him but they said “No”. He was eventually buried in a mass grave at Anfield Cemetery, but before that, Aunty Peg wanted him at home in a closed coffin. On the Wednesday after, they came over again and a Land Mine dropped on Croylands Street and destroyed half the street. The whole front of Aunty Peg’s house was ruined and the coffin was in the front room. We found out later that Billy did see his dad before the ambulance came, he said he couldn’t describe how bad he was, and Billy was only 18 yrs. old at the time. He swore vengeance on any Germans, he joined the army, he was stationed in Germany and ironically he married a German girl and had 2 daughters. Later they emigrated to America and he died of Leukaemia after a couple of years. I remember ringing his brother Jackie to see how he was and he told me Billy had died, Aunty Peg had gone out to be with him at the end. Before he went to America he was in the police force, he and I were always close, especially when we were children. Aunty Nellie, at the time of writing is 94 yrs. old and is in a home, she is the last of my mother’s family still alive.

  Around this time I joined the army cadets at the Gordon Institute in Stanley Road, Kirkdale. We did lots of sports including football, boxing, snooker and gymnastics, apart from military maneavours and firing ranges which I enjoyed.

  Ballroom dancing became a new interest for myself and my friends, we’d started going to Blair Hall in Walton Road, on the corner of Christopher Street, also to Lambeth Road School (my old school). Bobby Skelton and me started going to Campbell’s school of dancing in Breck Road, Mother, Father, Son & Daughter run the classes, they taught us all the main dances.

  The lads I worked with often got together at weekends and spent a lot of our time hanging around Stanley Road and Lambeth Road. I think it was because the Gordon Institute was so close, there were a lot of unsavoury characters around there, during those years and you had to be on your toes. I remember walking along the main road with Bob Skello and someone stuck a foot out and tripped Bobby up. I grabbed him to keep him walking, but he got away from me and went back to the doorway, the next thing someone hit him and knocked him into the road, before he could get up this lad was on him and they wrestled around for a while. Then Bob shouted me over, I went over and as I got there, the other lad shouted “Now lads” and 3 or 4 moved forward, you can be brave but not stupid, so I grabbed Bobby and we ran like hell. The shop doorway was “The Maypole” a very deep doorway that’s why we didn’t see them, plus it was the blackout. We got some of the lads from the Gordon and went back but they had gone. I started to go out with Bobby Hoyland and was enjoying myself and started to think maybe I’d be better off out of the army.

  The firm had sent me down to Leece Street Labour Exchange to fill forms out to exempt me until I was 20yrs old. In the meantime Mr Smith sent me to New Brighton to work with an old chap called Billy Simms working on an anti-aircraft site manned entirely by women. We were doing shuttering for reinforced walls around the guns. It was much different from the other work I’d been doing, the only snag was the foreman on the site he was a pig. To get there it was a bus, then train then quite a walk after, sometimes either the bus was late or the train, consequently I was a few minutes late some mornings and he’d give me hell and really make it tough. He went too far one day and I lost it and went for him with a piece of 2 x 2. If they hadn’t stopped me I swear I’d have split his head open, I was fuming, strangely enough I wasn’t sent back to the shop and he wasn’t too bad after that. By this time I had turned 18yrs and was enjoying life. Although the site was manned by women the quarter master was a man who offered me a pair of army boots on the cheap, so I bought them. When I got home I showed my parents the boots and my dad made a remark about the forces having plenty of boots like them, I was baffled. My mother said “Tell him” my dad handed me an envelope, I opened it up, it was my calling up papers and a letter saying “We need men of your industrial qualifications”. So I thought I’ll be in my own trade anyway. The following day I went to the office in Dryden Street and asked about my deferment from the forces but they just said you have got them now, so you’ll just have to go.