Bootle merchant seaman's World War II memories - reports Mark Johnson

"They were trying to bomb the canal - a half mile away. In the moonlight, they got the reflections off it and tried to bomb the bridge, which would have cut us off from Preston, but they missed.
"I was about 13 at the time. My father worked in shipping and had made a sealed bomb shelter for us in the outhouse. I was in there with my father, mother and sister, who was six.
"There was just one little square light in there. When the bomb dropped the glass from that went into my sister's left eye and she lost the sight in it. She and my mother had to have 60 stitches.
"I've got tinnitus now from several blows that I took to the head, I had nine stitches in my head.
"My father had knee injuries but he overcame the pain and shovelled the bricks off us. Then the civil defence turned up and took us to a nursing sister's home.
"There was blood everywhere from our bodies, but she didn't mind that, she said 'carry on let's treat these people and get them to hospital'.
"But in getting to hospital we had to divert several times because the incendiary bombs were being dropped so the German bombers could see Litherland.
"My mother and sister spent six weeks in hospital. My mother lost the use of her left arm.
"I was out first because I was the least injured. We went to stay with my aunt in Westhead. We were there for almost a year until we found a Bootle home."
After the war, Alan, then 21, joined the Merchant Navy at Bootle Dock, and travelled to South America.
He went on the Australian run before heading back to Liverpool, where he met a nurse from Garndolbenmaen, Wales, called Helen in 1961 - they married two years later and had two children.
He left the Merchant Navy in the early '60s and they headed for Australia.
Alan said: "I got work as a ground engineer for Qantas airlines, and Helen became a nurse in Sydney. We spent seven years there, and had two more children."
He got involved in football coaching and bizarrely became assistant manager for the 1974 Australian World Cup team, getting the nod from sponsors Qantas.
In 1973 they returned to Wales following the death of Alan's mother. But although he has lived in Gwynedd, Wales, for more than three decades he remains a passionate Liverpudlian.
He said: "It's a wonderful city, a great part of the country for young people."