What follows is a series of very short memories I have of being a small child in (and immediately after?) the SWW. I ought to mention that I was born in October 1940, that my father was mostly away either in Catterick as a serving soldier, or training as a paratrooper - he was dropped into Arnhem) or actually fighting, that my mother (born in 1923) was very isolated and very young - only 17 when I was born and that Bootle which was also where I was born was heavily bombed because of its proximity to the docks. Her mother had died in 1933 and her father was a savage, drunken and violent brute who had thrown her out when she told him she was pregnant with me. She had almost no support - her remaining living brothers were older and both were soldiers and away. My father's brothers were also either in the forces or on war work. Consequently she was on her own. She had one younger sister who had been evacuated to Southport. That was the background so now the few reminiscences I still have at 83 and going downhill. My earliest memory is of being in the dark in a cot in a corner of my mother's bedroom. My younger brother had not yet been born - he was two years younger than me and I presume the result of oneof his leaves. I hear a noise, a banging and some flashes lit up the bedroom. the cot side was down so I was able to get out and go to the window. There I was fascinated because I could see pencils of light perhaps three or four or more swinging backwards and forwards. Of course at that age I didn't realise they were searchlights - they were just wonderful to see. That's one flash. Now the next. Very fleeting - just being carried under one of my mother's arms out of the house and into the backyard where there was a small metal arched structure where we got in and it smelt of earth and I didn't like it. That's it. Next. Again in my mother's arms being carried outside of the house in a hurry. We went into a a dark room where there were a lot of other people and only one naked light bulb. I didn't know till later that ...