New Life

When war broke out in 1939 my father, Harry Baker, was too old for the original call-up and he joined the Home Guard. He was given a Canadian rifle with no front sight and ordered to defend the suburb of Walton, Liverpool from the Nazi hordes.
My family lived in Longmoor Lane, Fazakerley across the road from Fazakerley Hospital. It was then a fever hospital and consisted of brick single storey buildings in extensive grounds, each building an isolation ward.
One night during the Blitz, a huge landmine dropped in the grounds of the hospital and took part of our roof off. My dad was not on duty that night and was one of the first at the scene of the explosion. He picked his way through the devastation and went into one of the isolation wards. The building itself was still standing but the interior had been completely gutted by the blast. In the middle of the ward, a solitary nurse was sitting on a straight-backed chair. She was stark naked and her skin was black with filth. My dad approached her from behind and nervously touched her on the shoulder. She was dead although she had no obvious sign of injury. Lying in her lap was a baby, totally unharmed. She had been protected by the body of the nurse who, miraculously, had stayed sitting upright despite the force of the blast which had killed her and devastated the ward.
My father later joined the Royal Artillery, drove a Jeep up the blood-soaked beaches of Normandy on D-Day plus one and received a head wound at Caen a few days later. He recovered in time to take part in the Victory Parade in London, for which he was promoted to corporal. After the war he returned to his job at Jacobs biscuit factory in Liverpool. When he retired he was six months short of 50 years service there.
My father told me the hospital story, among others, many years ago and fallible memory being what it is, I may have got some of the facts wrong. If so, I apologise

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