THE night of stark terror when German bombs and bullets rained down from the St Helens skies is recaptured by Edward B. Johnson whose memorieswere stirred by our earlier piece about a British fighter plane which crashed close to what is now the town's Linkway.

The 60th anniversary, marking the end of that 1939-45 conflict, may now be looming large, but, despite the passing of those six decades, Edward still retains vivid recollections of his family's close brush with death at the height of the Liverpool Blitz.

"It was some time in 1940. The air raid siren had sounded and my mother went upstairs to get my baby sister," recalls Edward, now of Brunswick Road, Newton-le-Willows, but who then lived in Scots Avenue, Sutton Manor.

As his mother reached the foot of the stairs - on her way down from the bedroom, infant daughter in arms - there was a terrific explosion from outside. "The blast shot my mother across the living-room, right through its open door. She somehow had turned around and ended up sitting down on a chair by the side of the window, without dropping or hurting the baby."

Next day, the Johnson family went out to see what had happened. In neighbouring Walkers Lane they found holes burned into the carriageway by incendiary bombs. On the Lea Green Road side of a field fronting their house was a massive crater, created by the 500lb enemy bomb whose blast had sent Edward's mother flying across the room.

Aircraft bullet-holes riddled the bridge of the old Lea Green railway station where the German plane had narrowly missed a train as it passed beneath.

In a field at the side of Carr's Wood, sunk deeply into the ground, was the Boulton Paul Defiant British fighter mentioned in that earlier memory-jogging article on this page.

Spotted

About the same time that the Johnson family home was being rattled by that bomb blast, Edward's future father-in-law, working for the nearby Everite company, was returning from afternoon shift.

Overhead, he spotted a parachute with a land mine attached and raced home to his farm cottage in Lunts Heath Road as fast as his legs would carry him.

He and his family escaped harm, but others were not so lucky. Edward relates the tragic story of a local couple who had visited the cinema just before that air raid began, leaving their oldest child to look after three other children. After the all-clear sounded, the couple walked back to Claremont Drive where the full horror unfolded before them. The landmine, earlier spotted by Edward's future father-in-law, had dropped on their home, flattening it. None of the four children survived.

Edward enclosed a helpful map showing where the bombs fell and where the British aircraft crashed. He also explains how he used to stand by the front gate during darkness, looking across fields towards Liverpool to see a fiery glow in the sky as the Blitz bombing of the city intensified.

THANKS, Edward, for sharing those incredible wartime memories.