Brian Morris recalls seeing prisoners of war in the Second World War
Resource Type: Audio | Posted on 2nd November 2012 by Liam Physick
Brian Morris remembers how, during the Second World War, he saw American soldiers and Axis prisoners of war uploaded from troopships at the now-defunct Riverside station on the Docks - at Edge Hill, the last two coaches would be detached and pushed down to George’s Dock, and people would disembark from the train and board the ships, and the POWs were put on this train.
Interviewee: Brian Morris
Interviewee Gender: Male
Interview Transcript
Brian: And the other interesting thing that I used to see, coming through here, were the American troops (both laugh), and prisoners of war being uploaded from the troopships.
Jodie: Was that at, at, at Edge Hill?
Brian: Pardon?
Jodie: At Edge Hill?
Brian: Well, no, they were loaded on at the Docks, here was a station you see at Riverside, you could get from Riverside, which is where the cruise or the terminal is know, roughly there, where really near the Plaza, big Piazza Plaza Hotel, there was a station called Riverside, now that somehow went underneath the city and came out somewhere up here. If you go down from Edge Hill to Lime Street station, you will see a tunnel, and the train used to come from London, with the boat train – it was called the boat train but the last two carriages were the only ones that carried passengers, and it detached somewhere here, and went down the, a shunter came, pushed it all the way down to the, what was called the George’s Dock, and people then disembarked from the train, and walked straight down onto the liners going to America, wherever, so the, so the prisoners of war were put on somewhere round there.
Jodie: OK.
Brian: I was only, what, nine at the most, so these memories are a bit indistinct . . .
Jodie: Yeah.
Brian: . . . not so much even indistinct as I just didn’t know it, once I didn’t care but, I didn’t appreciate, that’s probably what it was.
Jodie: Yeah, you didn’t appreciate the significance of it.
Brian: I didn’t, the significance of things, yes.
Jodie: Yeah.
Categorised under: The War
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