A Lost Life, Liverpool

It must have been May 1944,when I was six years old, it was a clear warm day and crowds of people had gathered in Mill Street, Liverpool, to watch all the military vehicles, heading for Liverpool docks. We did not know it at the time, but this obviously was the build up for D Day.

In those days, one of the favourite tricks of the young lads was to wait for lorries to come round the bend in Mill Street and when they changed down gear, the lads would run behind the lorry, grab hold of the tailboard and swing their legs off the ground and rest them on the lorry's wheel arch. At the next bend, when the lorry slowed down again, the lads would drop their legs to the ground and leave go of the tailboard.

It was on this day in May 1944 that the military lorries followed the same route as commercial lorries, came round the bend and slowed down. A young boy of seven or eight ran into the road, caught hold of the tailboard of a military lorry and pulled his legs up to rest on the wheel arch. Unfortunately, military lorries were built differently than commercial lorries. Their wheel arches did not come down as far as those on commercial lorries. When the young lad pulled his legs up to rest on the wheel arch - of course there was no arch upon which to rest his feet. Tragically, his feet hit the wheel tyre and his body was taken around the wheel and he was thrown out onto the road.

I was standing on the kerb opposite where his body lay. No person went to look at the lad, so I went into the road put my hands under his arms and dragged him to the kerbside. At that time I had no knowledge of death and my aim was to pull him away so that he would not be hit by other lorries.

Subsequent to this incident a policemen called at my home. Firstly he spoke to my Mother and then me. I can remember his words so clearly "would you like to go to a party". Parties were so rare in those days that I did not hesitate in accepting this invitation. The party turned out to be a Coroner's inquest and I gave evidence of the incident.

Over the years I have wondered what the lad would now be doing, had he not been killed, and whether his surviving family think of him.

This particular incident is not directly related to a war incident but is a tragic consequence or by product of the war.

I have often thought of trying to find details of the coroners inquest but do not know where to start to fimd the information.

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