LEARNERS at a Penketh High School have been treated to two firsthand accounts of what life in Liverpool was like during the Battle of Britain.

Year nine history pupils at the Heath Road school have been studying the Second World War and were joined by local historians Arthur Doring and Pete Rutherford, who grew up in Speke and Toxteth respectively.

Before the guests shared their memories of wartime Liverpool, the third years saw a selection of photographs showing buildings which had been destroyed by Nazi bombers, and saw two clips from last year’s Channel 4 documentary Blitz Street increase their understanding of the Home Front.

Pete said: “That was Hitler’s aim; to cause as much destruction as possible.

“When thousands of bombers were coming over every night it did terrify people, but it also made them more determined to carry on and refuse to be defeated.”

Pete went on to tell the pupils of how he and his friends would play hide-and-seek between the piles of rubble of bombed out buildings and collect pieces of shrapnel, and how his family would split a Mars between them once a week as chocolate was been rationed.

To the surprise of the class, Pete also explained just one of his teachers at school was male due to conscription and that his brother, too young to be called up to fight, was drafted into the emergency services as a Fire Watcher.

Pete added: “The blitz had a different impact on you depending on your age.

“For me, as an eight-year-old and with my parents putting on a brave face, at the time I didn’t understand what was going on to well, but I’m sure my 15-year-old brother was feeling very different and much more scared.

“It’s only afterwards you realise how lucky you were to have lived through it.”

When Arthur came to speak he recalled how his family was once warned by an ARP Warden for not drawing their blackout curtains fully and that it was common to hear about the death of someone he knew.

Despite this, Arthur was keen to point out to the pupils the government understood how vital every citizen was to the British war effort and took steps to keep them working hard and distract them from the hardships of war.

He said: “The schools, the factories, everything stop at midday even though we were at war.

“Comedians and popular groups of the day would often come in and entertain the workers because the government knew it was important to their morale and productivity.”

During the lesson, the pupils also learnt about the legacy of the Second World War as it shaped Britain’s economy for the rest of the century, caused food to be rationed until 1954, and daily German bombing raids changed the landscape of Liverpool forever.

The classes’ teacher, Peter Taylor, said: “If we remember the blitz we can better our understanding of the country we live in today.”

Pete Rutherford and Arthur Dorning are both retired and are regular contributors to the local history organisation Penketh Heritage Group.