'Blitz Kids' on what life was like in wartime city

TODAY marks 80 years since VE Day 'Victory in Europe' Day when the German armed forces signed an unconditional surrender, and began the process of bringing WWII to an end after nearly six years.

- By JESS MOLYNEUX

Many across Liverpool remember what life was like in the city between 1939 and 1945 and the impact war had.

The memories of a number whose childhood took place during these years are now being told in a new book. Here, we take a look back at just a few of their stories, from life as an evacuee to the devastation they saw in the city and their memories of VE Day 80 years ago.

Frances Izzard, nee Twigg, was born in 1933 in the Scotland Road area and was one of 18 children. The second youngest child, Frances and three of her siblings were evacuated to Haslington in Cheshire during WWII and were split into pairs, being sent to the families of two brothers, The Brown's.

Frances, now 91, said: "I was six on August 23, 1939 and I was evacuated in the first week of September. It was all farms around Haslington, totally different to what I'd been used to.

"We used to see planes coming over heading for Liverpool and where bombs had gone off like a cloud. We always felt safe in the countryside, but we'd hear all sorts of stories about what was going on in Liverpool."

While away, Frances sadly lost five members of her family in the infamous Blackstock Gardens bombing. On December 20, 1940, her eldest brother John's wife and five of their children were in the shelter in the courtyard of the flats when it suffered a direct hit.

Their eldest daughter, Mary, was the only one to survive while another of their children, a baby, was in hospital at the time so escaped their fate. Frances lived in Haslington, Cheshire for three years but said she and her sister, Nancy, were treated poorly by their hosts.