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In 1941 I beacame a booking clerk and a telegraphist at Heswall Hills Station. This was on the L.N.E.R. Seacombe to Wrexham line. I was allowed one moth to learn morse code to enable me to receive and send messages on the single-needle telegraph instrument, which I had only seen previously on westerns in the cinema.
The station-master; Mr West, was also in charge of Storeton-for-Barnston station — the latter was closed after the war. I worked early and late shifts alternate weeks, and when Mr. West was not on duty, I was in charge of both stations, as well as two lad porters, Tom Gardner and Norman Gilfoyle. Quite a responsibility controlling these two boys. Lighting was by oil lamps, and late duty was a bit unnerving because the station was isolated, and of course there was no street lighting. I had to walk 1 mile to my bus stop and one night, the police sergeant who used to check with his constable at the station, took me home in his police car because he was anxious for me to arrive home safely.
My job description covered a variety of activities, the main one was issuing tickets to passengers travelling to Liverpool, Chester and Wrexham with all stations between. The biggest difficulty was interpreting a Welsh name spoken by a non-speaking Welsh person. For example, we had many servicemen travelling and I remember one Polish airman asking for a return to ‘Krigglewick’. It took a few minutes to realise he meant Caergwrle. As we booked tickets to stations throughout the U.K., my geography was greatly improved. I had to plot journeys and find out where the passenger would have to change to another line en route to his final destination.
We had several army camps in the surrounding country, and the goods they required were sent in wagons, vans, etc, to the station for the soldiers to unload and transport to their camps. Coal merchants also used the yard. Each day I had to go round the goods yard to not the number of wagons, check the number of days they had been there and work out the demurrage owed. For a shy teenager who blushed easily, the wolf-whistles were quite a trial. Teenagers in the 1940s were very different from teenagers today.
Carrier pigeons were used during the war, and several times a week I would have to weigh the baskets of pigeons, work out the cost, and despatch them to their destinations. We also received them and would release the pigeons before returning the empty baskets.
Because the line was the main one to Secombe Docks, it was well-used to transport tanks etc. to the docks for redirection. My knowledge of morse code enabled me to receive messages on the single-needle instrument, and if the message was about a military consignment en route for the docks, I would have to de-code it before sending on the message via the internal telephone system. If there was a thunder-storm, I would ignore the call signal as lightening frequently struck the instrument sending a flash a couple of feet into the office.
One day my brother, who was in the Home Guard, told me there would be a practise air raid that evening, and to ignore the sirens. Sure enough, the sirens sounded. Mr west came to the booking office and told the porter and me to go to the subway to shelter. I said I would if the bombs started to fall. He then unlocked his desk drawer, took out his dentures and locked them in the drawer. Maybe he did not wasn’t us to hear them chattering with fright.

'This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Radio Merseyside’s People’s War team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with his / her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

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